It is estimated that the total annual losses of insured property by
fire, throughout the world, average nearly two hundred million dollars.
Add to this the annual destruction of uninsured property, and we should
probably have a total amounting to quite double these figures. How great
the loss, how severe the tax upon the productive industry of mankind,
this enormous yearly destruction amounts to, will come home to the minds
of most readers more directly if we call attention to the fact that it
just about equals the value of our total wheat crop during a year of
good yield. And it is a direct tax upon productive industry everywhere,
because, although here and there a nominal loser, fully insured, has
only made what is sometimes called "a good sale" to the companies
holding his risk, this is only a way of apportioning the loss whereby
the community at large become the sufferers. Thus it is that we find all
ably-managed insurance companies earnestly endeavoring to make it plain
to the public how fires should be guarded against, or most effectually
localized and controlled when once started.
During the fall, or from "lighting up" time till about New Year's day,
more fires occur ordinarily than in any other portion of the year. This
fact points to some of the most general causes of conflagrations--as in
the lighting and heating of houses, factories, etc., where this had not
been necessary during the summer months. It is also found that after the
first of the year the number of fires is greatly diminished, the
lighting and heating arrangements having been subjected to a period of
trial during which their most obvious defects would be remedied. While
it may readily be conceded that the utmost care of the owner of property
could not totally prevent great average losses from fire--for the
greater the holdings the more must the proprietor trust to the oversight
of others--it is evident that the above facts indicate the necessity of
more strenuous precautions at this season. Gas pipes and fittings should
then be tested; furnace flues and settings looked to; stove, heater, and
grate fixtures and connections examined--and in all these particulars
the scrutiny should be most closely directed to parts ordinarily covered
up or out of sight, so that any defect or weakness from long disuse may
be exposed. When to the above causes of fires we have added the
extremely fruitful one found in the extensive use of coal oil within a
few years past, we have indicated the most common sources of
conflagrations of known origin. An English authority gives the
percentages of different causes of 30,000 fires in London, from 1833 to
1865, as follows: Candles, 11.07; curtains, 9.71; flues, 7.80; gas,
7.65; sparks, 4.47; stoves, 1.67; children playing, 1.59; matches, 1.41;
smoking tobacco, 1.40, other known causes, 19.40; unknown causes, 32.88.
The foregoing figures do not give the percentage of incendiary fires,
and later statistics would, no doubt, show vastly more fires from the
use of kerosene than are here attributed to candles.
The prevention of fires, and the best means of minimizing the loss when
they do occur, are topics which cover a wide field, and a collection of
the literature on the subject would make a very respectable library. As
the question presents itself to-day, it may well be doubted whether the
general practice of large property holders of insuring all their
possessions does not tend to lessen the constant vigilance which is the
most essential requisite in preventing fires. Thousands of merchants
never mean to keep a dollar's worth of goods in store or warehouse that
is not fully covered by insurance, and they make this cost a regular
charge upon their business as peremptorily as they do the wages paid the
hands in their employ. But few manufacturers can so completely cover
their risks by insurance, yet a large portion of them do so as far as
they are able. It does not follow but that the larger portion of both
merchants and manufacturers exercise what the law will fully decide is
"due vigilance" in the care of the property so insured, but it is
evident that in most cases the thoughtfulness is much less complete--the
care wonderfully lacking in personal supervision--as compared with what
would be the case were each one his own insurer. Of course, this in no
way casts a doubt upon the general policy of business men being amply
insured, but in fact shows the greater necessity why they should be so,
that they may not suffer from the carelessness of a neighbor; it also
points to the necessity of continually increasing care and thoroughness
of inspection on the part of the insurance companies. These agencies, in
fact, must compel the insured to keep up to the mark in the introduction
of every improvement to ward off fires or diminish their
destructiveness. The progress made in this department during recent
years has been great. The almost universal use of steam has been
attended by the fitting up of factories with force pumps, hose, and all
the appliances of a modern fire brigade; dangerous rooms are metal
sheathed, and machinery likely to cause fire is surrounded by stationary
pipes from which jets of water may be turned on instantaneously from the
outside; stores and warehouses have standing pipes from which every
floor may be flooded with water under pressure, and the elevators, those
most dangerous flues for rapidly spreading a fire, are either bricked in
entirely or supposed to be closed at every floor. The latter point,
however, is sometimes forgotten, as sea captains forget to keep the
divisions of their vessels having watertight compartments separate from
one another; the open elevator enlarges a small fire as rapidly as the
open compartment allows the vessel to sink.
With the best of appliances, however, discipline and drill on the part
of the hands, in all factories, is of prime importance. It is always in
the first stages of a fire that thoroughly efficient action is
necessary, and here it is worth a thousand-fold more than can be any
efforts after a fire is once thoroughly started. Long immunity is apt to
beget a feeling of security, and the carelessness resulting from
overconfidence has been the means of destroying many valuable factories
which were amply provided with every facility for their own
preservation. The teachers in some of the public schools of New York and
Brooklyn, during the past year, set an example which some of our
millowners might profitably follow. There have been cases when, from a
sudden alarm of fire, children have been crushed in their crowding to
get out of the building. The teachers, in the instances referred to,
marched their children out, under discipline, as if there had been a
fire. Let owners of factories try some such plan as this, by which
workmen may be called upon to cope with an imaginary fire, and many of
them will, we venture to say, find means of improving their present
system or appliances for protection, elaborate as they may at present
think them to be.
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