FIRE PREVENTION

By EDWARD F. CROKER. Dodd. Mead & Co. 354 pp. Price $1.50; by mail

of THE SURVEY $1.

Fire Prevention, by Edward F. Croker, formerly chief of the New York

Fire Department for almost twelve years, is a presentation of the

principal safeguards against loss by fire. In it ex-Chief Croker

tells in a readable way what, from his long experience as a fire

fighter, he considers the most effective ways to extinguish fires.

Most of all he emphasizes the necessity of preventing fires. “If I

had my way about it,” he says, “I would not permit a piece of wood as

big as a man’s finger to be used in the construction of any building

in the United States which had a ground area larger than twenty-five

by fifty feet and was more than three stories in height.” He calls

attention also, to a point which has been emphasized many times

when he declares that “it is not so much the buildings which should

receive added protection but the contents and the inmates of them.

We must add to the term ‘fire-proof,’ the terms ‘death-proof’ and

‘conflagration proof.’”

Perhaps to a lay reader to whom some of the intricacies of steel

construction, high pressure, and fire-fighting apparatus are not

plain, the most interesting chapters are those which deal with

housekeeping whether in the home, store or workshop.

In his chapter on Prevention of Fire in the Dwelling, Mr. Croker

gives a number of simple suggestions which would prevent most of the

thousands and thousands of fires in the 11,000,000 wooden buildings

in this country and save a financial loss which in two years equals

the cost of the Panama Canal. Concerning these suggestions there can

be little disagreement, although those which he makes for additional

laws may not win as unanimous support.