When the chief of the London Fire Brigade visited the United States in
1882, he was, as is the general rule on the other side of the Atlantic,
"interviewed"--a custom, it may be remarked, which appears to be gaining
ground also in this country. The inferences drawn from these interviews
seem to be that the absence of large fires in London was chiefly due to the
superiority of our fire brigade, and that the greater frequency of
conflagrations in American cities, and particularly in New York, was due to
the inferiority of their fire departments. How unjust such a comparison
would be is shown in a paper presented by Mr. Edward B. Dorsey, a member
of the American Society of Civil Engineers, to that association, in which
the author discusses the comparative liability to and danger from
conflagrations in London and in American cities. He found from an
investigation which he conducted with much care during a visit to London
that it is undoubtedly true that large fires are much less frequent in the
metropolis than in American cities; but it is equally true that the
circumstances existing in London and New York are quite different. As it is
a well-known fact that the promptness, efficiency, and bravery of American
firemen cannot be surpassed, we gladly give prominence to the result of the
author's investigations into the true causes of the great liability of
American cities to large fires. In a highly interesting comparison the
writer has selected New York and London as typical cities, although his
observations will apply to most American and English towns, if, perhaps,
with not quite the same force. In the first place, the efforts of the
London Fire Brigade receive much aid from our peculiarly damp climate. From
the average of eleven years (1871-1881) of the meteorological observations
made at the Greenwich Observatory, it appears that in London it rains, on
the average, more than three days in the week, that the sun shines only
one-fourth of the time he is above the horizon, and that the atmosphere
only lacks 18 per cent. of complete saturation, and is cloudy seven-tenths
of the time. Moreover, the humidity of the atmosphere in London is very
uniform, varying but little in the different months. Under these
circumstances, wood will not be ignited very easily by sparks or by contact
with a weak flame. This is very different from the condition of wood in the
long, hot, dry seasons of the American continent. The average temperature
for the three winter months in London is 38.24 degrees Fahr.; in New York
it is 31.56 degrees, or 6.68 degrees lower. This lower range of temperature
must be the cause of many conflagrations, for, to make up for the
deficiency in the natural temperature, there must be in New York many more
and larger domestic fires. The following statistics, taken from the records
of the New York Fire Department, show this. In the three winter months of
1881, January, February, and December, there were 522 fire alarms in New
York, or an average per month of 174; in the remaining nine months 1,263,
or an average per month of 140. In the corresponding three winter months of
1882 there were 602 fire alarms, or an average per month of 201; in the
remaining nine months 1,401, or an average per month of 155. In round
numbers there were in 1881 one-fourth, and in 1882 one-third more fire
alarms in the three winter months than in the nine warmer months. We are
not aware that similar statistics have ever been compiled for London, and
are consequently unable to draw comparison; but, speaking from
recollection, fires appear to be more frequent also in London during the
winter months.
Another cause of the greater frequency of fires in New York and their more
destructive nature is the greater density of population in that city. The
London Metropolitan Police District covers 690 square miles, extending 12
to 15 miles in every direction from Charing Cross, and contained in 1881 a
population of 4,764,312; but what is generally known as London covers 122
square miles, containing, in 1881, 528,794 houses, and a population of
3,814,574, averaging 7.21 persons per house, 49 per acre, and 31,267 per
square mile. Now let us look at New York. South of Fortieth Street between
the Hudson and East Rivers, New York has an area of 3,905 acres, a fraction
over six square miles, exclusive of piers, and contained, according to the
census of 1880, a population of 813,076. This gives 208 persons per acre.
The census of 1880 reports the total number of dwellings in New York at
73,684; total population, 1,206,299; average per dwelling, 16.37. Selecting
for comparison an area about equal from the fifteen most densely populated
districts or parishes of London, of an aggregate area of 3,896 acres, and
with a total population of 746,305, we obtain 191.5 persons per acre. Thus
briefly New York averaged 208 persons per acre, and 16.37 per dwelling;
London, for the same area, 191.5 persons per acre, and 7.21 per house. But
this comparison is scarcely fair, as in London only the most populous and
poorest districts are included, corresponding to the entirely tenement
districts of New York, while in the latter city it includes the richest and
most fashionable sections, as well as the poorest. If tenement districts
were taken alone, the population would be found much more dense, and New
York proportionately much more densely populated. Taking four of the most
thickly populated of the London districts (East London, Strand, Old Street,
St. Luke's, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and St. George, Bloomsbury), we find
on a total area of 792 acres a population of 197,285, or an average of 249
persons per acre. In four of the most densely populated wards of New York
(10th, 11th, 13th, and 17th), we have on an area of 735 acres a population
of 258,966, or 352 persons per acre. This is 40 per cent. higher than in
London, the districts being about the same size, each containing about
1-1/5 square miles. Apart from the greater crowding which takes place in
New York, and the different style of buildings, another very fertile cause
of the spreading of fires is the freer use of wood in their construction.
It is asserted that in New York there is more than double the quantity of
wood used in buildings per acre than in London. From a house census
undertaken in 1882 by the New York Fire Department, moreover, it appears
that there were 106,885 buildings including sheds, of which 28,798 houses
were built of wood or other inflammable materials, besides 3,803 wooden
sheds, giving a total of 32,601 wooden buildings.
We are not aware that there are any wooden houses left in London. There are
other minor causes which act as checks upon the spreading of fires in
London. London houses are mostly small in size, and fires are thus confined
to a limited space between brick walls. Their walls are generally low and
well braced, which enable the firemen to approach them without danger.
About 60 per cent. of London houses are less than 22 feet high from the
pavement to the eaves; more than half of the remainder are less than 40
feet high, very few being over 50 feet high. This, of course, excludes the
newer buildings in the City. St. James's Palace does not exceed 40 feet,
the Bank of England not over 30 feet in height; but these are exceptional
structures. Fireproof roofings and projecting party walls also retard the
spreading of conflagrations. The houses being comparatively low and small,
the firemen are enabled to throw water easily over them, and to reach their
roofs with short ladders. There is in London an almost universal absence of
wooden additions and outbuildings, and the New York ash barrel or box kept
in the house is also unknown. The local authorities in London keep a strict
watch over the manufacture or storage of combustible materials in populous
parts of the city. Although overhead telegraph wires are multiplying to an
alarming extent in London, their number is nothing to be compared to their
bewildering multitude in New York, where their presence is not only a
hinderance to the operations of the firemen, but a positive danger to their
lives. Finally--and this has already been partly dealt with in speaking of
the comparative density of population of the two cities--a look at the map
of London will show us how the River Thames and the numerous parks,
squares, private grounds, wide streets, as well as the railways running
into London, all act as effectual barriers to the extension of fires.
The recent great conflagrations in the city vividly illustrate to Londoners
what fire could do if their metropolis were built on the New York plan. The
City, however, as we have remarked, is an exceptional part of London, and,
taking the British metropolis as it is, with its hundreds of square miles
of suburbs, and contrasting its condition with that of New York, we are led
to adopt the opinion that London, with its excellent fire brigade, is safe
from a destructive conflagration. It was stated above, and it is repeated
here, that the fire brigade of New York is unsurpassed for promptness,
skill, and heroic intrepidity, but their task, by contrast, is a heavy one
in a city like New York, with its numerous wooden buildings, wooden or
asphalt roofs, buildings from four to ten stories high, with long unbraced
walls, weakened by many large windows, containing more than ten times the
timber an average London house does, and that very inflammable, owing to
the dry and hot American climate. But this is not all. In New York we find
the five and six story tenement houses with two or three families on each
floor, each with their private ash barrel or box kept handy in their rooms,
all striving to keep warm during the severe winters of North America. We
also find narrow streets and high buildings, with nothing to arrest the
extension of a fire except a few small parks, not even projecting or
effectual fire-walls between the several buildings. And to all this must be
added the perfect freedom with which the city authorities of New York allow
in its most populous portions large stables, timber yards, carpenters'
shops, and the manufacture and storage of inflammable materials. Personal
liberty could not be carried to a more dangerous extent. We ought to be
thankful that in such matters individual freedom is somewhat hampered in
our old-fashioned and quieter-going country.--_London Morning Post_.
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