Fire levies upon Americans each year an enormous tax, calculated
by government officials at almost a million and a half dollars a
day and 1,499 lives a year.
As a result of an investigation by officials of the geological
survey, it has been ascertained that cheaper fireproof materials
can be used to advantage in construction, that three to six
times the necessary amount of material is habitually used in
structural work, that the building codes are laxly enforced,
that the fire loss in the United States is eight times as much
per capita as in any country in Europe, and that the great
fire waste in the United States is due, principally, to the
predominance of frame buildings and to defective construction
and equipment.
Contrast between the small losses by fire to government
buildings and the immense losses reported from the country as a
whole, led the geological survey to make an inquiry.
Not one person in a thousand knows that the United States
Government owns buildings that cost more than $300,000,000,
and is spending $20,000,000 a year for new buildings. It will
be a surprize to every one, too, to learn that not one cent of
insurance against loss by fire is carried on these valuable
buildings. Insurance at the ordinary rate would cost more than
half a million dollars a year, and the government avoids this
great tax by constructing buildings that are securely fireproof.
After a careful investigation, it has been determined that the
total cost of fires in the United States in 1907, excluding that
of forest fires and the marine losses (in themselves extensive),
but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad
construction and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted
to the enormous sum of $456,485,000, a tax on the American
people exceeding the total value of all the gold, silver, copper
and petroleum produced in the United States in that year.
The cost of building construction in 1907 in forty-nine leading
cities of the United States, reporting a total population of
less than 18,000,000, amounted to $661,076,286, and the cost of
building construction for the entire country is conservatively
estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly
one-half of the value of all the new buildings constructed
within one year is destroyed by fire. The annual fire cost is
greater than the value of the real property and improvements in
either Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana or Montana. In addition to this waste
of wealth and natural resources, 1,499 persons were killed and
many thousands were injured in fires in the United States in
1907.
The actual fire loss in the United States due to destruction
of buildings and their contents amounted to $215,084,709 in
1907. This was $2.51 loss per capita. The per capita loss in
the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to
but 33 cents. Comparisons of the total cost of fires, which
includes the items already stated, show that if buildings in the
United States were as nearly fireproof as those in Europe, the
annual fire cost would be $90,000,000 instead of $456,000,000.
(Text.)--Pittsburg _Leader_.
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