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FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

AN AUTHORITATIVE PRESENTATION OF THE FIRE
PREVENTION PROBLEM, GIVING THE HISTORI-
CAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART OF SAFE
BUILDING, AND THE BEST MODERN
PRACTICE IN FIREPROOF AND FIRE-
RESISTING CONSTRUCTION

F. W. FITZPATRICK

CONSULTING ARCHITECT (FORMERLY OF U. S. SERVICE)

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF STATE AND MUNICIPAL
BUILDING COMMISSIONERS AND INSPECTORS, ETC.

AND THEODORE L. CONDRON, M. S.

CONSULTING CIVIL ENGINEER
MEMBER, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE

1914

AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE

Copyrighted in Great Britain
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

PART I
FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

PAGE

Conflagrations 2

Evolution of combustible dwellings 5

Great fires of history 9

Baltimore fire 10

Route of flames 12

Evidences of intense heat 15

Analysis of the damage in tall buildings 16

Fireproof lessons from Baltimore fire 21

San Francisco fire 26

Building conditions before the fire 27

Story of spread of conflagration 34

Failure of water supply 34

Effects of dynamite 37

Complications of earthquake and fire 45

Slipshod methods in rebuilding city 48

Fire's havoc 51

Waste of property 52

One year's fire losses 55

American vs. foreign fire losses : 58

Analysis of losses in United States 59

Losses in treeless States 63

Losses in timber States 63

Remedy for depletion of timber and iron supply 67

Fireproof construction only protection 71

Causes of fire 75

Primary and secondary causes 75

New hazards 77

National building code 78

Fire extinction 80

Use of water 80

Use of chemicals 80

Use of live steam 81

Automatic sprinklers 81

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2 CONTENTS

FAQB

Insurance idea 82

Insurance policy no protection . . 83

Insurance statistics 92

Neighboring risk in Europe . 93

PART II

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Stimulus to good building 1

Legislative control 2

Remission of taxes 4

Labeling buildings. 5

• Neighboring liability 6

~ - Public opinion 6

Building conditions in American cities 12

Proportion of poor buildings 12

"Skimped" buildings 13

Conditions compared with Europe. 14

Real fireproofing and its value 15

Importance of good design 16

Fireproofing as an investment 16

Insurance vs. fireproof construction 20

Economy of fireproofing 27

Ignorance retards growth of fireproofing idea 29

Popular misconceptions of fireproofing 33

Contents and finish of buildings 36

Isolated units in buildings 36

Steel and tile or concrete frame 41

Wire glass and other protective features 43

"City unburnable" a possibility 44

Municipal regulations 45

Attitude of architects , 51

Evolution of building construction 55

Early forms 55

Stone and brick 57

Unprotected iron and steel 57

Tile protection 60

Corrugated and plate floor construction 63

CONTENTS 3

Evolution of building construction PAGE

Mill construction - 64

Steel frame buildings 69

Reinforced concrete 72

Uses of cement 74

Dangers and limitations of concrete 78

Steel and tile vs. reinforced concrete 80

Fireproof building in detail 97

Outside walls 97

Ornamental surfaces 97

Wall openings 99

Doors and window shutters 99

Wire glass windows 100

Skylights and transoms 102

Roofing 103

Piers and foundations 104

Structural parts 105

External light courts 106

Stairs and elevator shafts 107

Halls and exits 107

General fireproof features 109

Wall finish. . . .^. .- 109

Furnishings Ill

Special requirements Ill

Theaters Ill

Assembly halls 113

Churches 113

Hotels ' 113

Fireproof homes . . 115

General characteristics 116

Several plans in detail 121

- Standard tests of building materials 136

Methods of retarding fires 145

Concrete from the fire-resisting standpoint 15r

As building material 151

Construction development due to concrete 153

Early forms 153

Applications of concrete 154

Girder and slab types 154

Mushroom type 159

4 CONTENTS

Concrete from the fire-resisting standpoint PAGE

Fire resisting qualities 159

Fire records and tests 166

Peavey Elevator Company 166

Huyler Candy Factory 166

Dayton Motor Car Works 169

Thompson & Norris Building 175

F. W. Tunnell & Company Building 175

Concrete cottage at Winthrop Beach 179

F. B. Klock Building 183

Rubber Reclaiming Plant 184

McCray, Morrison & Company Elevator 186

N. F. P. A. Report 187

Laboratory tests 193

INTRODUCTION

was for centuries looked upon as an inevitable accompani-
ment to civilization, a sort of necessary evil,, but only to be
reckoned with after it had gotten started. Vast sums of money were
expended in fire-department equipment,, and the members of those
departments were expert indeed in casting literally oceans of water
upon the flames, often doing more damage by water than was done
by the fire. This was called "Fire Protection". But fire losses in life
and property went merrily along, increasing at an appallingly greater
ratio than did our population or wealth, until it was finally recognized
that they constituted an absolutely unbearable tax upon the communi-
ties, though the individual received some imaginary solace by being
indemnified for his property-loss by Insurance.

C The Press, the greatest reform power on earth, did splendid work
in awakening the Nation to its terribly fire-ridden condition, and
when once well started Fire Prevention went along with a vim. The
result is that a large majority of the cities and towns in the Union have
revised their Building Codes during the past few years ; Fire Prevention
societies have been organized; fire departments have given attention
to intelligent prevention as well as to extinction; individuals have
become more careful (subconsciously, probably) in avoiding connect-
ing matches and lighted cigarettes with waste-paper baskets; manu-
facturers, realizing that in safety was the best profit, have built and
installed automatic sprinkling devices. In fact, a veritable wave of
prevention is now sweeping over the entire country.

C In spite of this progress, there is yet much to do. Our fathers'
disregard for safety, their blind confidence in Providence or good luck,
and our own early indiscretions in the same line, have provided so
very much fuel for fire that, build as well as we may, our old fire

INTRODUCTION

traps assure us of years of worry and loss. Now that we as a people
have been awakened, we must keep on intelligently working at the
problem of bettering our building conditions in order to prevent our
lapsing into the old methods which have proved so dangerous to life
and property. The American School of Correspondence, realizing the
demand for expert knowledge of the subject and the necessity of
stimulating this "awakening" of the people, prepared recently a most
comprehensive course of instruction in the fields of fire prevention
and insurance. With the idea that there are thousands interested
in the subject of prevention — the answer to which is fireproof building
— the publishers offer this section of their complete work as a readable
presentation of the building situation of today and of the methods and
practice which have been found safe and reliable. It presents some-
thing a layman can understand and appreciate, something the business
and professional men, who have neither the time nor inclination to
take up the matter in its complete form, can digest and apply to their
own building problems. The book is published in the hope that it will
help to spread the gospel of "good building" throughout the country,
and decrease our national fire losses to the sane basis which has been
maintained in Europe for many years.

F. W. FITZPATRICK

Consulting Architect (Formerly of United States Service). Executive Officer, International

Society of State and Municipal Building Commissioners and Inspectors. Pioneer Exponent of

Fireproof Construction in This Country

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

INTRODUCTION

From the beginning of time fire has played a most important
part in the world's evolution, changes, progress, its very existence.
Physicists will tell you the composition of fire, its why and where-
fore, but with all that we are not now concerned. Suffice it for us
that fire is what might be called, for our purpose, the visible expres-
sion of heat. Without solar heat there would be no life here; abso-
lutely everything depends upon it. But we are not dealing with
"reflected solar rays" and such highly interesting but ultra-scientific
matter; we have in mind now mere fire, the combustion of inflam-
mable materials by ignition and the destruction or damage to many
materials by exposure to great heat generated by fire — plain, ter-
restrial burning.

This fire that we know about, that we see, that we fear, and that
we use, is sufficiently important to engage all of our attention. It has
made and unmade continents; it has been turned into power, steam;
with it nine-tenths of our food is prepared; properly subjugated it
is our most important ally, whilst unharnessed and running amuck it
can destroy and has destroyed in an hour what nature has taken cen-
turies to make, and what man has spent years in fashioning. It is
the most dreaded of devastators; it has been used in war not only
as a means of discharging murderous weapons, but in its crude
state, so to speak, as an auxiliary which ranks with carnage and
rapine. In the form of conflagrations, it has supplied some of the
most spectacular and memorable and saddest events in history.
The ancients soon recognized its potentiality and gave fire an equal
place in their worship with the sun. Fire-worship is found among

The author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Insurance Engineering
Magazine, the Metropolitan Magazine, Popular Science Monthly, Cement Age, the Roe-
bling Construction Company, the National Fireprooflng Company, the U. S. Geological
Survey, and the Building Departments of many cities for data, reports, the use of illustra-
tions, and many other courtesies.

FIRE :AND FIRE LOSSES

the oldest of peoples; in Babylon it ranked almost equal with the
worship of their great god, Baal, the sun god, and next of kin to the
Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; in Peru and ancient Mexico it
had its place in the theogony of the times. It was practiced by our
own North American Indians, and, in fact, has always ranked quite
equal if not superior to the astral worship of nearly all polytheistic
peoples. All nations and peoples and races turn fire to the prac-
tical usages of heat-producing and cookery, and some have even
gone so far as to cultivate a taste for eating it. This latter
feat, however, has been and is generally performed only by fakirs
and jugglers. But we have some well authenticated cases on record
that show it was no trick but an actual accomplishment, molten wax
and pitch being swallowed while aflame and that in the presence of
learned professors and investigators not likely to be fooled by, or to
lend themselves to, any mere trick.

Enough for the subject of fire in general. Its ramifications are
most interesting, the development of its use for cooking raw foods,
the different manners or modes of producing heat or power with it,
—how in the latter connection, it may well be said to "turn the
world'1 — any one of these details is fascinatingly attractive and would
tempt us to linger with and study it. But now fire is to be discussed
only in its destructive aspect — the great conflagrations of our own
times, the havoc they and the "ordinary" fires make with life and the
work of men, buildings, and contents; the causes of these fires; the
means taken to stop, cure, or prevent them; and, lastly, the most
important of preventive measures — the fire-resisting construction
of buildings.

CONFLAGRATIONS

Man is a gregarious animal and from the earliest times has
sought to live in communities. Defence against other tribes or
wild animals was thus made easier and life generally more bear-
able. As soon as he emerged from the caves and burrows of remotest
antiquity and began fashioning habitations of his own handiwork
— even the rudest tents of animal skins stretched upon poles — he
laid the foundations, so to speak, for the conflagrations and terrible
devastations by fire of later times, for the structural portions of those
tents were inflammable, and their coverings, unlike the huge boulders

Fig. 2. A Spectacular Fire in a Grain Elevator

There have been 2, 385 such elevators destroyed in seventeen years in this country alone.
The lack of fireproof elevators in Chicago is largely to blame for that city's loss of its
title of "the greatest wheat market in the world."

Fig. 3. The Huge Pall of Smoke that Hung Over San Francisco During the Fire

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 5

and rocky walls of his first home, were damageable, destructible by
fire. Combine those qualities with carelessness and ignorance
and you have all the essentials for a conflagration, ancient or modern.

Peoples living in the vicinity of laminated rock formations had
already quarried and used it in what might be called crude masonry
to build their homes. In the course of time, however, they learned
to quarry stone in the shapes and in the quantities they desired.
Others, living upon the plains, away from the forest and where stone,
and even field rocks were few, devised a mode of forming clay into
rough blocks that could be handled in building walls to enclose
their ''houses,*' or worked up these walls solidly of "adobe" clay,
mud thitt soon dried and offered a very adequate protection, only
one surface ever being exposed thereafter to the weather. From
this early beginning sprang the later art of brick-making, first merely
sun-dried or baked brick, and later kiln brick, the most perfect
and only imperishable material of any time, ancient or modern.
To it we owe most of what we know about antiquity. Documents
and records written upon papyrus, or leather, or any other fabric,
have been burned, obliterated, passed away, those graven upon
stone and marble or fashioned in metal have been severely dealt with
by time and the elements, so much so as to be of little or no value
to the historian; but those wrought in burned clay, and even the
dates inscribed upon the bricks of the temples, the urns, the tablets,
are as fresh and legible today as when they left the kiln two, three,
seven thousand or more years ago.

By far the greater number of peoples have lived where timber
was easily procurable — and therefore wood has become the most
common medium for the builder to work in and has stayed such
through all ages. The demands made upon the forests of the earth
have been insatiable, and as careless methods of lumbering have
always been in vogue, actual denudation has been the order of the
day. Only the most intelligent and careful people have ever made
any attempt at reforestation; the amount actually done is so small
as to be absolutely negligible. So today, the world over, there is
an actual scarcity of lumber, prices have mounted sky-high and. per.
haps luckily, we at last have to resort to other materials in the con-
struction of buildings.

Only as much foresight as it required to prompt the farmer to

6- FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

prepare his ground and plant another ' crop after he has reaped
one harvest would have been necessary to secure for us and all pos-
terity an abundance of timber. The ruthless deforestation practiced,
particularly in America, has not only produced a scarcity of lum-
ber but it has also entirely changed the complexion, so to speak,
of vast sections. Exposing the earth's surface to the free action of
rains and snows and sun has permitted erosion to such an extent
that valleys have been filled up, arable hills have been worn down
to bare rocks, the course of streams has been altered, waste places

Fig. 4. The Folly of Planing Mills and Wood Yards within the City Limits
This was the beginning of a $2,000,000 fire.

have been made where thousands of men could have cultivated and
lived profitably, life-giving rain precipitation has been checked, and
the very climate has been tampered with.

Naturally, wood being one of the most combustible of materials,
and whole cities being built of it, destruction by fire has ever been
most common. Even in the countries where stone and brick were
used in construction, the roofs of buildings, the fittings, and the
furniture were in great part wood, sufficient always to supply ample
material for combustion, so that everywhere and at every time great
fires have been the order of the day. Tyre, Babylon, Alexandria,

8 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Thebes, Rome — every city of old was the scene, sometime or other,
of a great conflagration, a holocaust; and lucky, indeed, was the city
that was so visited or entirely destroyed but once. In more modern
times fire has wreaked even greater havoc. The "London Fire,"
the ."Burning of Moscow," and such events are epochs in history.

In what may be termed our own times, there have been conflagra-
tions that made those old epoch-making blazes fade into utter in-
significance. .We supinely accept them as necessary evils and no
longer consider "extraordinary" anything that recurs every two
years or so — there was but that time between the fires of Baltimore
and San Francisco, and we are just about due another great blaze
and have done very little to head-off that ever impending evil.

We Americans are prone to gauge most things by the dollar
mark. And perhaps it is, though so unsentimental, as good a stand- .
ard as any. Let us accept it here as an indication of the extent of
some destruction done by conflagrations in comparatively recent
times. Table I gives the time and place of these great single fires
and the approximate damage wrought to property. In most of them,
too, great numbers of lives were lost, but with that most distressing
feature we are not at present concerned. Mark, too, that these are
all fires of $10,000,000 and over. The number of serious ones, really
conflagrations but of only a few million dollars, is simply legion.

The seriousness of our "ordinary" or "small" fires can be appre-
ciated by scanning our fire report for June, 1910, a very normal month,
during which no really "big" fire took place. Yet there was an
average of one conflagration a day, burning up at least one whole
block, of six to nine buildings; in ten cases the fire consisted of more
than twenty distinct separate buildings, and in seven of those ten
cases it was a "general" fire where a goodly part or all of a small
town was totally wiped out of existence.

During the past twenty-five years I have either witnessed every
great conflagration there has been in this country or been upon
the ground as soon afterward as steam could carry me. The effects
of fire upon buildings, the spread of fire, its action, the effectiveness
or the ineffectiveness of water upon it— all phases of the subject
are then at their best, if we may so express it, to be studied; one
can see so well what theories are exploded or confirmed, where a
weakness in defense was fatal, that he can plan new lines of attack

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

TABLE I
Great Fires of the Past 80 Years

Dec. 10, 1825

New York City

$ 17,500,000

May 4, 1842

Harrisburg, Pa.

35,000,000

Aug. 6, 1848

Constantinople

15,000,000

May 4, 1851

St. Louis

15,000,000

Dec. 12, 1861

Charleston, S. C.

10,000,000

July 5, 1866

Portland, Me.

10,000,000

June 5, 1870

Constantinople

25,000,000

Oct. 8, 1871

Chicago

165,000,000

Nov. 9, 1872

Boston

70,000,000

Sept. 3, 1876

St. Hyacinthe, Can.

15,000,000

June 4, 1877

St. John, N. B.

15,000,000

Dec 11, 1882

Kingston, Jamaica

10,000,000

July 8, 1892

St. Johns, N. F.

25,000,000

Oct. 5, .1896

Guayaquil, Ecuador

22,000,000

Apr. 27, 1900

Ottawa, Canada

10,000,000

May 3, 1901

Jacksonville, Fla.

10,000,000

Feb. 7, 1904

Baltimore

60,000,000

Apr. 10, 1904

Toronto, Canada

12,000,000

Apr. 18, 1906

San Francisco

350,000,000

upon the dread devastator. Such a study of fires is fascinating and
has led to some beneficent results; municipal building departments,
insurance companies, the business world generally — all are now
giving this subject intelligent attention with the idea of minimizing
the fire-havoc that until comparatively recently it has been the
custom of believing inevitable.

The fires of many years ago furnish us lessons of indifferent
value; but the Baltimore and San Francisco fires are of such
recent occurrence and are so valuable, from the fire-expert's point
of view, in that they were the only ones in which the new "sky-
scraper" buildings had ever been involved and our theories of "fire-
proofing" had ever been given conflagration-tests, that we may well
afford to go somewhat into detail and give them more than a casual
glance.

The following two excerpts are from reports made by me after
exhaustive study of both fires and many weeks of delving into the ruins.
These investigations were made at the instance of and for the U. S.
and other Governments, Municipal Societies, Building Depart-
ments and such bodies. Some of the data and photographs obtained

10 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

are absolutely unique, for, armed with the proper authority, I man-
aged to examine and photograph many buildings and dangerous
ruins while the wreckers protestingly waited to dynamite or pull

them down.

THE BALTIMORE FIRE

Never before have our theories of fireproof construction re-
ceived so severe a test, and that those skyscrapers are still stand-
ing and that their structural members that were properly protected
are intact, is all the vindication the most enthusiastic of the sup-
porters of modern fireproofing theories could hope for.

Something like one hundred and fifty acres of territory were gutted.
In Fig. 6 is shown the trend of the main blasts, as it were, of the
fire. It originated at the point marked by the white cross, and
spread with greatest velocity in the direction of the first arrow. There
was a high wind blowing, some say almost a gale, of forty miles an
hour. The fire jumped to point 2, and swung along in the con-
trary direction to the first trend, sweeping in a curve and diverging
into two forks, as indicated by the arrows. When the fire reached
the diverging point, sparks or some other cause created an outburst
at point 3, and the fire worked along in a northerly direction with
lightning speed on the line shown by arrow 3. The northerly point
of arrow 2 seemed to be about the hottest of the fire. Spectators
say that it seemed to linger there and put forth its mightiest effort to
utterly consume everything within its grasp. The trend of the fire
there seemed, to be a sort of vortex rather than a tendency to spread,
but soon it started off again on the line marked by arrow 4, in an
almost due southeasterly direction, an irresistible, unyielding force,
against which it was useless to battle. A considerable time after
fires along line 4 were burning fiercely, another trend was started
at point 5, and continued in nearly a parallel direction to the other.
The fire apparently burned fiercest on those lines indicated on the
chart; however, it spread all about, beyond and between those lines,
but in a more leisurely manner. The portion shaded darkly on the
map shows the section that was fire-swept and the black line outside
of that district shows the police and militia patrol limits within which
no one is allowed without a pass from the authorities.

I was able to verify the accuracy of these lines on the chart
by noting the intensity of the heat as indicated by its action on the

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 6. The Baltimore Fire

The shaded portions show extent of fire zone, the dark line of the military jurisdiction
alter the fire, and the arrows the direction of the fire currents from starting point X.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

metals and brick and stone, and while the wind evidently played
some peculiar pranks and made strange twistings, the terrible drafts
created by the fire itself performed some wonderfully acrobatic feats,

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so to speak, in twisting the lines of action vertically as well as hori-
zontally. In places it would seem as if the blast had passed over
three- and four-storied buildings to attack the six- and seven-storied

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

ones most fiercely, while leaving the former to burn more slowly,
and sometimes from the top down. Three or four buildings escaped
in this manner from absolute destruction; one, the Safe Deposit
Company building, a two-story, well-built affair, went scot free,

Fig. 8. The Hurst Building where the Baltimore Fire Started

the brickwork and the iron shutters showing really but very little
of the effects of the terrific heat that must have been all about it.

Some actions of that fire baffle scientific explanation. In the
very case of this Deposit Company building, I can understand how
the fire could have swept over it so quickly, and, there being nothing
about its exterior that would readily ignite, that it should escape; but

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

some distance away and across the street from the new Custom
House stands the old United States stores building; on every side
of this building its neighbors have been completely gutted, while
it stands to all appearances absolutely intact. The glass in the
windows is not broken and the window frames are but blistered,
while the shutters inside the closed windows are charred and

Fig. 9. A One-Time Popular Hotel in Baltimore

scorched. Could the heat simply have been intense enough to scorch
this woodwork inside, through the plate glass, but, unaccompanied
by flame, and being influenced by counter currents of air, leave the
exterior unmarred? The building suffered some in the upper story
by reason of the breaking of the skylights and the fire getting in
that way. Other pranks of the fires are shown here and there in
the streets; a wooden telephone or telegraph pole stands compara-

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 15

tively untouched, while nearby an iron one is twisted into all sorts
of shapes.

The combustion in the buildings was complete and most search-
ing. Usually after a fire there will be charred bits of floor joists
still sticking to the walls and masses of closely-packed goods or
papers on the ground, their very density preventing their combus-
tion. But not so here. In most of the buildings burnt, particularly
along the lines of the most intense fire shown in the diagram, there is
not a vestige of anything but stone, brick, and iron left. One would
think that the draft had drawn up whatever little residue there might
have been and scattered it about in cinders and dust. Charred
papers were found miles off, and whole sheets of tin were carried
blocks away. Indeed, the suction or draft created was so great
that many skylights and iron roofs appeared *to have been lifted
before collapsing. Some of the skylight glass appears to have
been broken outward, too, and before fire could have had effect
upon it from within. In some buildings the glass from the windows is
mainly within them, and in others it is on the outside and well away
from them, again showing that the suction of air along those streets,
toward the vortex of the fire, must have been something tremendous.
Furthermore, in some buildings there is very little glass to be found —
it seemed to have disappeared ; while about others were found stalac-
tite formations of fused glass, which indicated the terrific heat that
must have been generated.

On the sidewalk in front of one building, there had been a bulletin
board with a sheet of the latest news pasted upon it. This was but
a trifle scorched about the edges. Nothing was left of the building
but a few little stubs of the walls, but this bulletin board was at the
corner of the intersecting streets. A cross-draft of cold air may
have protected it; or may there not have been created an almost
absolute vacuum at such points?

On another building where iron and glass and stone were either
twisted or phased out of all recognizable shape, a small glass sign
stands undamaged with the gilded letters as bright as new.

The fiercest of the fire seemed to be at the point of the northerly
arrow 2, Fig. 6, and there were centered most of the important com-
mercial houses. The fire fed on the factories and manufacturing
plants below that point, and there gaining tremendous headway

16 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

and intensity, swept this commercial district virtually out of exist-
ence. "Slow-burning," "mill-constructed/' and all kinds of build-
ings, good and bad, went by the board. The fire seemingly tackled
them from the top first, in a quick, blast-like stroke, and then what
might be called a secondary fire worked horizontally along and
burned from the ground up to the point apparently first attacked by
the fiercest flames. As Figs. 8 and 9 will show, a few stalagmites, as
it were, of walls and piers alone mark the site of these buildings —
and only the "skyscrapers" stand in anything like structural entity,
splendid monuments to our progress in the science of building.

The work of the fire on such tall buildings as the Continental
Trust building, a fifteen-story structure — one of Baltimore's latest
and best buildings — may be easily followed. This building was
attacked a little more than halfway up, the most intense blast strik-
ing it about the tenth floor. I found typewriters and other metallic
materials in that story absolutely fused into a molten mass, which
means a temperature of 2,800 degrees. It was apparent that blasts
similar to the first struck this building later, on the other side from that
first attack, but these were undoubtedly of slightly less intensity;
then the fire ate away from the second story upward more slowly
and then downward. Of course, window frames and glass and
the doors and finish, even the floor strips in the concrete, and all
the contents of this and the other fireproof buildings, were destroyed.
Some of the newspapers in their excitement stated that these build-
ings burnt as quickly and as completely as the wooden ones, and
people, the unthinking ones, generally decry against the so-called
fireproof construction, because they have discovered by this fire that
they were wrong in their ideas that a fireproof building guaranteed
immunity to even highly inflammable materials used in its decora-
tion or stored within it. To say that the structures actually burned
is, of course, foolish and manifestly incorrect, even to the most
ignorant, because they are still standing, and many of them in an
easily reparable condition. Take this Continental Trust build-
ing, for instance; all the structural steel was incased in tile, and
not a bit of it is warped or out of level. The exposed metal por-
tions are twisted into all kinds of fantastic shapes, but the struc-
ture itself, the frame, is intact. The structural conditions of all
fchese skyscraping buildings that were built at all within the gen-

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 12. - Unprotected Side Windows Gave Access to Fire; the Interior Entirely Gutted

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 13. One of the Big Brick and Terra Gotta Baltimore Buildings after the Fire
The contents gutted but the exterior nearly intact.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 21

eral scheme of our theories of fireproofing, stood the awful test re-
markably well. The Equitable building, which is, I imagine, an
old building, and one in which, though tile was used, its application
was not made along scientific lines, makes a worse showing than
any of the others. The soffits of its beams were exposed, the tile
arches were segmental, the haunches were not concreted — evidently
to save money — and on top of the beams was a heavy two-inch plank
floor covered with a finished, dressed flooring. As only a portion
of the webs of the beams were protected, the heat twisted and curved
these beams all out of shape and necessarily distorted the columns,
so that the building will undoubtedly have to be entirely rebuilt.
The Calvert, the Herald, the Union Trust, and the Maryland Trust
buildings are, as far as their structures go, in fair shape to be re-
paired, for the steelwork was fully protected by the tile fireproofing.

These skyscrapers were built to contend with ordinary con-
ditions; for instance, if the fire had originated in any one of them, it
could not have gotten beyond control, and no one in Baltimore ever
anticipated that these buildings would be subjected to any such
test from without. Even if such a possibility had bee* thought of,
I venture to state that no one in Baltimore would have been willing
to pay the increased cost that would have been entailed had these
buildings been erected to withstand any such terrific heat and flame.
There are few places in the country where skyscrapers could be
subjected to any such test; those in New York and Chicago are
surrounded by a better class of buildings than generally obtained in
Baltimore. The Washington Post very aptly puts it that a "fire-
proof building is one that is fireproof itself and is surrounded by
fireproof buildings." That, I grant, would be an ideal condition,
one that I have long prayed for, and preached for, and yet that defini-
tion of a fireproof structure is not essentially correct. Another such
conflagration is possible and probable in a city like San Francisco
(rather prophetic), or 'Boston, or New Orleans where great office
buildings are found rising from among vast areas of shanties and
the most inflammable of structures.

In repairing these buildings in Baltimore and in building new
ones of their class in this burnt district, no greater precautions need
to be taken, as far as structure is concerned, than we find in the
best of the old ones, says the Continental Trust, because presumably

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

a better general class of buildings than the old wooden ones will be
insisted upon by the authorities (alas, but little better than the old
has replaced them), and in that case no such conflagration could
again be possible in that district.

Some people say that this fire proves that an absolutely fire-
proof building, or one that under such stress would afford protec-

Fig. 14. What Is Left of a "Slow-Burning", "Mill-Constructed" Bunding after a Fire

tion to its contents, is virtually an impossibility; only the unthink-
ing ones would make any such statement. The people who built the
structures we have under consideration, the Baltimore skyscrapers,
used fireproofing about their structural parts only. In the finish
and all else in these buildings there was absolutely no difference be-
tween them and the firetraps that stood all about them and which
have now disappeared from off the face of the earth. Insofar
as that fireproofing went, it has been eminently successful, and this

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

terrible fire demonstrated its value more forcefully and potently
than anything that has happened in the past twenty years.

Think of the test the steelwork was subjected to! Imagine
dropping a lot of closely bound and connected metal, very susceptible

Fig. 16. A Baltimore Street After the Fire

to variations in temperature, into a furnace where different parts
of that metal would] be subjected to a temperature of 98, 400, and
3,000 degrees at the same time, and remember that that metal was
encased in sometimes not over one inch of tile and that its parts were
not warped, disjointed, or otherwise damaged by that terrific heat
test. At some one time those tall buildings underwent about those
variations of temperature. Realizing this and having those buildings

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 17. The Alexander Brown Building
Almost intact, protected with wire glass, a veritable oasis in the desert of fire waste.

Fig. 18 Ineffective Fire Shutter Protection

26 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

standing before us in splendid proof of their stability, how can any-
one making claim to the possesrion of even ordinary intelligence
state that "fireproofing" is not fireproof?

The great fire of Chicago in 1871 had for its effect throughout
the country the barring of frame buildings within certain limits.
This great fire of Baltimore is another step in the popular education,
and will result in people doing more thorough fireproofing in struc-
tural building and using less damageable materials in exterior and
interior decorations. But this education is slow, and ,enormously
costly. It will take another such terrible experience (and it did) to
thoroughly impress the people with the fact that we so-called cranks
on construction are right and are not making unreasonable demands
in the line of improved methods of building. We realize and appre-
ciate the possibility of such great conflagrations, but people call
us "croakers" until the things we foretold actually do happen. Then
they come to us and tell us how clever we are and ask our advice
as to how they should build, and because, forsooth, our way costs
more money than they care to expend, they erect the flimsiest struc-
tures the too "complacent" laws will allow. Judging from my mail
these days, both architects and laymen have experienced a change
of heart and are anxiously and insistently desirous of advice how
to build well, rather than cheaply — but the desire will last only a
few weeks, or mcnths, perhaps. City laws compelling people to build
well are our only absolute safeguard — good laws well enforced by
competent zealous officers are the solution of the building problem.
THE SAN FRANCISCO FIRE CALAMITY

It is said that surgeons must necessarily become hardened
to the sight of human suffering; presumably, too, one, a part of whose
business it is to examine into all the tribulations of building, must
grow accustomed to the sight of devastation as the result of human
stupidity or carelessness. I have seen the effects on buildings of
all the great disasters of the past twenty years, and approached
San Francisco fully prepared not to be surprised at the extent or
degree of its calamity. But the panorama that deployed itself before
me when I first gazed upon the stricken city from its highest point
was enough to make any man's flesh creep — a hundred Pompeiies
gathered upon one site; the Baltimore wreck, awful as that was,
magnified iortyfold!

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Fig. 19. Comparative Areas of the More Recent Historic Conflagrations.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

The suffering of the people, the heroism and rare skill shown
by a few coolheaded leaders, the good work of the military, and
other dramatic and soul-stirring features of the story, have all been
well and repeatedly told in the daily and periodic press. This report
must needs deal alone with the structural conditions of the city, a
subject vast enough in itself.

As with most cities, San Francisco grew up from a shanty-town
into a city of great commercial importance at a much more rapid rate

Fig. 20. One of the Many Mile Long "Bread Lines" in San Francisco after the Fire
Rich and poor had to be so fed on government rations for days until regular supplies
could arrive. All this suffering and loss of property entailed by that fire can, with per-
fect justice, be charged to the poor construction of the buildings.

than did her buildings in the scale of metropolitan excellence. The
old Mission Dolores Church of early days with its adobe walls and
tile roof has successfully withstood every earthquake shock, even
this last, but it was found that the indifferently made bricks and
mortar in vogue in the '50's and '60's, or thereabouts, were an easy
prey to every quake, and the popular verdict was, therefore, that
wood could best withstand the buffetings of old Mother Earth-
wood to remain in place at all had to be well-nailed, and therefore

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 29

it would hold together while bricks could be stacked up with but
the semblance of mortar in their outer joints — a delusion and a snare.
Wood was therefore used in even the most important buildings, being
made to imitate stone for appearance's sake. Then, little by little,
real stone and brick were again used for external walls, for it became
evident that in the congested district this sop to fire-retarding was
quite essential; still, the wood framing and tenpenny-spiked bond-
ing obtained as far as internal structural parts were concerned. It
is less than twenty years since Californians were first induced to
permit the construction of a steel frame building; the law did not com-
pel it; and in fact, the authorities looked askance at tall, steel construc-
tion as constituting a menace and certain danger in the case of quake.
Since then, perhaps fifty buildings have been erected under the
name of "fireproof construction."

In these tall buildings one thing has generally been done well,
the steel frames having been exceptionally strongly built and extra
braced with what is commonly known as "wind-bracing" — a pre-
caution against quake. Apart from that, absolutely no extra care
was taken; the stone setting, the brickwork, the fireproofing of the
structure, and the other safeguards against fire — these latter chiefly
conspicuous b.y their absence — were in no case superior to our better
class of construction in the East. It would have been reasonable
in those large buildings, at least, on account of quake and conflagra-
tion hazards (San Francisco and New Orleans were two cities in
which the latter seemed most probable and would be most far-reach-
ing, the buildings being fully 90 per cent frame), to expect a general
construction of from 14 to 30 per cent better than we use in New
York and Chicago, where the first hazard is hardly to be expected
and the second is a somewhat remote contingency. As a matter of
fact, with rare exceptions indeed, even the best San Francisco build-
ings were from 15 to 50 per cent poorer in design and construction,
from a fireproof engineer's point of view, than our best buildings
in New York, Washington, and Chicago. And as for the secondary
buildings, I doubt if any city in the country made less provision
against fire and quake than did San Francisco

The building laws were lax and, in plain English, the archi-
tects either knew little or cared little about fire protection; builders
made the most of this laxity, and manufacturers — in keen competition

30 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

among themselves and against the outside — made their materials
accordingly. No one thing or group of people need be blamed
for the result. The conditions were general and laxity and reck-
lessness were local characteristics.

Local brick was only fair in quality; the lime mortar generally
used was not of superior grade, and what little cement mortar there
was, had for components a pretty fine sand and a very inferior cement.
There are, of course, exceptions to all of this arraignment — I am
speaking now in general terms of the conditions as I knew them
and found them to exist in the greater part of the work done in San
Francisco. Architects seldom sinned on the safe side of steel con-
struction. Gusset plates and rivets seemed an expensive luxury,
save in the few very tall buildings that were "wind-braced"; the fire-
proofing tile protection, particularly of columns, was exceedingly
thin, invariably of dense tile (generally also inclosing steam and
other pipes), put together around columns with merely galvanized
iron U's, generally forming part of partitions, never tied to the column
or with a mass of filling tile or concrete in the voids of the column;
beam soffits were sometimes entirely exposed and seldom had more
than a f-inch slab; partitions were light, of dense tile, none too
good mortar, and no other bond than the mortar; tile floor arches
were generally of side construction or other obsolete forms and
seldom of sufficient depth to withstand earthquake shocks. In no
building was the steel work thoroughly covered with cement as a
protection against corrosion, before being enclosed in fireproof pro-
tection. None of this fireproofing, in shape, manufacture, or par-
ticularly in application, was at all equal to the best work now being
done in the East. There was no call for it, and any manufacturer
will give only what the market demands, particularly when he has
to compete with cheaper, inferior products. Yet wherever tiling
was even fairly treated in construction, it in every case performed
its functions well. Many buildings show evidences that the steel
work did not receive a second coat of paint.

The concrete used in floor and other construction was generally
made of local cement, of very inferior quality, while the reinforcing
systems most in vogue are not now regarded as being up-to-date,
are scant in metal and overwide in span without rigidly riveted steel
ties. Fortunately, most of the concrete floors were protected with

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

a suspended metal and plaster ceiling that more or less successfully
parried the first fierce blast of fire, a protection, however, that proved

jLuJ^LuL^^J^LJLJ^L-.LJ^U

v>rrrffS-QnM^nnBB|DDDDDDBnnc

ODDBaDaODDDDDDE

IDDQBUDDDDDnnDDE
DDDDDDBDDL

ODD:

ODE

JANUARY

THE NEW SAN FRANCISCO.

Fig. 21.

itself there, as everywhere else, grossly inadequate when applied
directly to steel members.

Metal and plaster partitions predominated; tile partitions were
set upon the wood strips and concrete filling of floors; in all these
tile partitions there were wood strips for wainscoting and skirting
board, wood jambs for doorways, and wood lintels and sills for

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

corridor lights. In every case but one, the tall buildings were trimmed
entirely with wood. In no case were stairs and elevators cut
off. None of the big buildings were sufficiently, or indeed, at
all, protected with wired glass, or even shutters. In lamentably
few cases was there any attempt at an adequate local supply of water.
Generally speaking, the big buildings were fireproof only in that
their steel frames were more or less effectually protected from fire
and that their floor construction and partitions were not of wood.
That one act was deemed sufficient to impart "immunity" to all the
inflammable remainder of the building! In all else they offered
as little resistance to quake and fire as did the second and third

Fig. 23. The Inadequacy of Ordinary Glass
Firejwent through these windows as it would through paper.

and fourth classes of buildings, though vast expenditures were
made by architects for much carved stone, highly ornamented terra
cotta, rare marbles, and other accessories that people have been
taught to term architecture. The second and other classes of buildings
were but mere shells of brick and stone or wood with occasionally
an exposed iron beam and a cast-iron column, but whose carrying
parts generally were all of wood, without cut-offs or the faintest
semblance of provision against fire or quake.

That, in brief, is a fair picture of San Francisco on the 17th day
of April, 1906. A picture as unattractive could hardly be painted
of any city in the East or Middle West, and yet San Francisco has

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

always been known to be subject to very severe earthquakes and
more than ordinarily exposed to fire. Her fire department was a
most excellent one, and therefore the insurance companies abetted
her in her sins by writing foolishly low rates on her very flimsy build-
ings. Surely her people have paid the price for their sins of omis-
sion— for they say that ignorance is no excuse at law — their archi-

Fig. 24. Wire Glass After a Fire
Note that some molten glass has run down upon the sill, yet fire found no ingress there.

tects' sins of commission, and the authorities' worse than criminal
neglect. The lives of hundreds of her citizens were cruelly wasted
(the exact number never will be known, but I am positive it far
exceeds the official returns); the waste, the actual destruction of
property into ashes and smoke must certainly reach far in excess
of $300,000,000 (with probably $200,000,000 insurance, settlement
of much of which will have to be by litigation, that in all probability

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 25. Ineffective FireprooHng After a Fire

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

will decree that about $140,000,000 be paid the policy holders),
while the indirect loss in business, in time, and in values to the city

Fig. 26. Fire's Ingress via the Window Route

This, the San Francisco Call building, was fairly isolated but fire literally jumped
across the street at it, entered through the lower windows, consumed all there was in it
that could be burned and the smoke and flames were carried up and out the upper
windows as if the structure had been one vast chimney.

and to^the nation at large can only be told in a figure of ten digits.
The story goes that at 5:30, or immediately after the quake

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 37

a lady living at Gough and Hayes streets, wanting a cup of coffee,
lighted a fire in her kitchen stove that vented into a damaged chim-
ney and set fire to some adjacent woodwork. At all events, the
consensus of opinion is that the first fire originated not far from
St. Ignatius Church and that the wind, though being but a slight
westward breeze, fanned the fire toward Market Street. Whether
that was the first fire or not matters little, for it is pretty well estab-
lished that within a few minutes after the quake there were fires
well started in at least ten different places. The water mains had
been broken by the quake and though a gallant fight was waged
the fire was soon beyond all human control. The people made little
stand against it, they were panic-stricken and fled. The fire depart-
ment could do but little. Its chief had been mortally stricken by
the earthquake. He was a splendid executive, but held too much
in his own hands. He had expected just such a calamity, had begged
for a salt water supply downtown, had studied out the city as a chess-
board and knew just where he would use dynamite to the best ad-
vantage; he realized that there was abundant water in the sewers
and had planned to use that in case of need. Had he been on duty,
good general that he was, it is barely possible he might have con-
fined the flames to a more restricted section. The sub-chiefs were
not accustomed to great executive duties, and no one had the initiative
or could think of the expedients he had planned and undoubtedly
would have resorted to. Military, police, and fire departments took
a hand. Dynamite was used, but foolishly, for as in all great crises^
some men "lost their heads/' In some cases, buildings actually on
fire were dynamited, thus scattering ignition in a hundred direc-
tions; instead of blowing up small buildings to make an open space
r,nd letting fire waste itself in the big buildings where there was
comparatively little to burn, several of these tall structures were
dynamited — an action that in no way retarded the fire, but that
caused infinitely more damage to these expensive structures than
either quake or fire or the two together. It is doubtful if even at Van
Ness Avenue dynamite did very much good. Of course, in such a
fire fierce currents and drafts are created, but at no time during its
duration was there any tempestuous wind such as prevailed at the
Baltimore fire. Then, too, most of the wood used, unlike in Balti-
more, was not over-resinous in nature, so that the fire, while fierce

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES'

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 41

indeed, was much slower, steadier, all-absorbing, and developed
at only a few points temperatures as high as were shown at Baltimore;
there was less of the "blow-pipe" effect.

At Van Ness Avenue the fire encountered a very wide thorough-
fare, a breeze from the west, and a solid stand of defense. The
people were in the last ditch, as it were, and though exhausted,
fought every inch of fire with wet blankets and whatever they found
at hand. In the extreme southwest of Market Street the fire ex-
tended up to Dolores Street, but there it died out or was conquered.

Here and there in the stricken district are what seem to be oases
in the desert. A half-dozen blocks on the water front between
Lombard, Montgomery, and Green streets were comparatively
untouched; then again on a hillside around Vallejo and Jones streets,
"Telegraph Hill," there are a few dainty residences and green trees.
The old Appraisers' Warehouse and its immediate vicinity are
comparatively unscathed, while the Postoffice, the Mint, and a
few other isolated buildings show where there were some local water
supply, tanks, etc., and where a few devoted employes fought the
good battle to victory.

In the downtown district the fires were erratic, they would
glow and fiercely consume some buildings, in others, where there
was seemingly as much combustible material, they would dim and
smoulder. There were pauses at some of the big buildings, almost
extinction; then gases would ignite in those great piles, lighted
via the unprotected windows, and everything burnable within them
seemed to be on fire at one time. Popular verdict has it that the
Call building was "red hot" and glowed like an ember.

The government buildings stood well apart and isolated, which,
of course, was an advantage. The Postoffice, one of the best built
buildings in San Francisco, if not the very best, was very little damaged
by the fire, in fact on the interior not enough to interfere with the
workings for even a day, while on the exterior only some of its granite
work was a bit scaled off. However, as the building was on made
ground, the damage from quake and dynamiting was considerable.
One or two arch stones are thrown bodily out of place, the great
granite piers in front are here and there cracked angle-wise across
their faces; in the projection of one pavilion is a vertical crack nearly
halfway down and 3 inches wide, showing that the front has

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

been pushed out, but fortunately there were ties and bonds and
the repair will be easy. On the Mission Street side the street has

Fig. 30. The Great and Handsome City Hall Before the Earthquake and Fire

sunken fully 4 feet and carried with it steps, terrace, and base
of the building. The fissures in this structure, as elsewhere, have

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

not followed the joints by any means, but have started at a joint
and gone clear but raggedly through the other stonework, and there

Fig. 31. The Great and Handsome City Hall After the Earthquake and Fire

A tile floor had recently been put into the top story and apparently that cut off

the fire from destroying the top of the dome.

are usually two or three cracks in the same general direction. In-
ternally, the glass throughout is pretty badly shattered, the plaster-

Fig. 32. Improperly Placed Hollow Tile Protection
The steel column when heated crumpled up under its load and caused much damage.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 45

ing is cracKed at the lintel lines over the doors; whole sections of
marble wainscoting are thrown out, but no tile partitions are dis-
placed or internal structural parts wrecked. The employes say
that they had the building all cleaned up and in working shape by
Sunday night after the quake, but that the blasting of Monday
morning did a goodly part of the damage now noticed. The repairs
to the Postoffice will certainly involve $100,000 or more. In the
Appraisers' Warehouse and the Mint they fought the fire with hose,
wet blankets, gunnysacks — anything at hand; glass was shattered,
some plastering gone, and here and there rooms were a bit scorched
but the damage is not severe. Ancient forms of construction ob-
tained in these buildings — good big brick walls, iron beams and
brick floor arches, showing scant signs of any disturbance.

The City Hall was a very large, imposing, and somewhat artistic
building, but cruelly poor in construction. The outer walls were
of brick, covered and ornamented with stucco, while the structural
parts were of iron or steel, having segmental floor arches of cor-
rugated iron plates covered with a miserably poor quality of con-
crete and protected by a suspended ceiling. Some partitions were
brick, some were tile; much of the iron work was unprotected. The
earthquake wrecked it badly, fire completed the task, and the
only thing that can be done with it now is to tear down what is left
and clear off the site.

Some idea of the severity of the shock may be gleaned by an
examination of this building. The portico, columns were great
affairs fully 4 feet 6 inches in diameter and over 30 feet tall, cut up
by drums 8 feet or so long and composed of a shell of cast iron an
inch thick, filled solidly with tons and tons of concrete. These
columns, at least many of them, lie flat in the street and many feet
from the building, the tons and tons of weight not simply pushed
out from the top by crushing roof or anything of that kind, or teetered
off their bases by a shaking motion, but literally "kicked off" and
well out from their support. This building cost millions of money
and was undoubtedly the plaything of grafters. Even in the parts
not burned the concrete is so poor you can pick it out of place; and
where fire touched it at all, all life is extinct and you shake an entire
section by walking across it. Most of the wreckage lies toward
the west. The cast-iron framing columns are badly warped and

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 47

twisted, though in places the molded capitals are barely scorched;
the metal in the cornices and decorations outside is either entirely
off or so blistered and crumpled as to be useless. Here and there
are slight evidences of good workmanship; one might almost call
them spasms of virtue in careful superintendence. Where the
brickwork was well bonded and good cement mortar used it held
so well that though thrown out of place or carried out by the wreck-
age there are great chunks here and there, 4 feet and 5 feet cubes,
as homogeneous and solid as any rock. Even the concrete in places
was well done. I found a section 4 feet by 10 feet that had fallen
three stories and was still a pretty fair slab. The dome, with all
its columns and ornamentation, is a shattered mass of debris, save
its steel frame that supports, high in the air, a tile floor, the top story
of the dome, above which everything seems to be in pretty fair shape!
It must be perfectly evident to even the layman that in the
strict sense of the term there were no fireproof buildings in San
Francisco. It has been demonstrated to the architects and people
of San Francisco, if they did not know it before, that the mere fire-
proofing of the steel work, putting in this or that material in the
floor construction, does not constitute a heavenly dispensation to
construct every other part of the building in a way which is no
better than that used in the veriest firetrap. So it must be evident
that where the fireproofing of the structure was well done, that
structure has not suffered; that where the interior fittings were of
non-inflammable material, as in the Kohl building, incipient fires
inside of the building found little to feed upon and were easily ex-
tinguished; that where there was much of the inflammable in the
construction and occupancy of a building, but where its windows
were protected with \vire glass, as in the California Electric Supply
building, and the attack from fire was altogether external, the interior
of the building and its contents were saved; that where there was
any local water supply, little material to burn, intelligent or trained
employes in charge, as in the several government buildings, fire
could be successfully fought; and that, had there been any buildings
there, which were cut up into small units by impassable fire barriers
or in which stories were isolated by stair and elevator wells being
enclosed, fire originating in any of the units could not reach or dam-
age the others. Now then, with all this before the San Francisco

48 FIRE AND_FIRE LOSSES

people — even if they had absolutely no regard for the warnings, the
preachings we have been carrying on for years, the reiteration of
these very things — is it not reasonable to expect that they will assemble
the features of construction that have severally proved themselves
sane and reliable, into one complete system of construction and
establish that as a standard of proper building?

It would be most wise, true economy— an approach to the ideal
condition of municipal government — if such a standard were made
obligatory in the new city. But with the government as it is, such
municipal Utopianism is absolutely out of the question. The archi-
tects in the past certainly did not rise to the situation, and the
chances are ten to one that they will continue to build anything a
man wants and with just as scant provision against destruction as
the exceedingly lax laws will permit. Therefore it is really up to the
individual owner of property to be discriminating, to judge for him-
self, to know something about construction and to direct what he
wants to build. Surrounded as his building must long remain, by
shacks and even tall buildings of questionable construction, it must
be perfectly obvious to him that his sole salvation lies in the pro-
tection he is wise enough to give his own property. He must needs
build his warehouse, office building, store, club, or residence so that
it will suffer the least possible damage in a conflagration scarce one
whit less severe than this last. If people talk insurance to him as a
possible salve he must remember how little of the sore that salve
actually covered in the later disaster and he must also remember
how costly it is — a salve that has cost us $1,610,880,000 for premiums
in ten years — and that a building really well constructed and de-
signed is virtually its own insurance, and though its first cost may
be a trifle greater than if he builds in the usual manner, its ultimate
cost in actual dollars and cents is far less, and when he sees his neigh-
bor's flimsy building disappearing in fire and smoke he will feel
that the extra cost of his own building for its proper construction is
absolutely clear profit.

The burned area equaled 4.7 square miles, or 3,000 acres, or
520 blocks. The fire destroyed 28,000 buildings along 36 miles of
streets.

In all that great city there were thirty buildings whose designers
knew enough to at least attempt the fireproofing of one feature,

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 34. California Electric Building

This building was saved by wire glazed windows and two faithful employes, though
the building was an inferior one and in the thick of the fire.

Fig. 35. The Windows That Did the Protecting

Fig. 36. Wire and Plaster Partition After a Fire

Fig. 37. In Sai

Francisco Long Corridors Had Wooden Sashes and Ordinary Glass
Divisions Above the Tile Partitions

All these sashes burned out and allowed fire free scope throughout the building.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 51

the structural steel portion of those buildings; one other designer
knew enough to use metallic trimming in his building, and there was
still another who, though he designed an obsolete and useless form
of general construction, knew enough to protect his building exter-
nally with wire glass. Now surely there must be one man there who,
in the new city, will give us one building embodying all those good
features; one building that is really fireproof and that will stand to
point the way — the direction, the means, the manner, of construct-
ing other buildings — after the next great conflagration will have still
further accentuated the lessons so forcefully expounded in the greatest
of modern conflagrations, the destruction of our western metropolis,
San Francisco, once known as "the magnificent " (Not a single
building has, thus far, been so built in San Francisco.)

NOTE. To the disturbance that that fire created in our financial centers,
the absolute extinction of so great a money value, and the necessity for hurry-
ing so much cash to one (remote) point — the Red Cross Society distributed
millions in relief and the Federal and State Governments centered there and
scattered many millions more — is attributable in a very great part the general
depression of 1907. Our business pendulum was rudely shaken and swayed
in all directions and the very delicate clockwork of our financial organism
was so disturbed that even at this late date it still slips a cog once in a while.

Many insurance companies went out of business as a result of the San
Francisco disaster, others were badly crippled, and all were made exceedingly
nervous, to say the least, but finally adjustments were made and on buildings
and contents was paid $138,640,000 to the policy holders.

But little more than that sum has been put into building operations since
the fire. That is only a coincidence, however, for, of course, stocks of good.?
have been purchased, furniture, etc., so that probably nearly twice as great a
sum has been put into contents.

Up to July, 1909— our last report— $140,000,000 has been expended in
building; 86 first class buildings costing $20,000,000 have been erected, 7,193
alterations and repairs made at $10,000,000, and 1,417 new buildings of
Class C — rather inferior construction — costing $45,500,000 have been built,
and only 113 of Class B — fairly good construction — while 13,444 frame build-
ings have been permitted — $56,000,000 worth! Fuel for another conflagration!

FIRE'S HAVOC

An Economic and Cruel Waste of Life and Property. We note
that San Francisco in its upbuilding had again supplied a vast
amount of fuel for another conflagration. It would seem that the
chief concern of the builders, particularly in this country, and for
ages past, has been to supply an adequate amount of fuel, the cost-

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

liest we could devise, for conflagration and the "occasional" fire to
consume. We have done the work well and the results have even
surpassed our expectations. The "occasional" fire has become
so frequent, indeed there are about three thousand of them a day,

Fig. 38.

Note Effect of a Fire Upon the Stone Work of the Upper Parts

and so destructive-1500,000 and $1,000,000 burnings, a whole
block at a time, receive but the most meager, passing notice-that
m bulk they total a yearly loss far in excess of any, except one, of
the historic conflagrations themselves.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

We have reason to be proud of the phenomenal growth of our
American cities, the beauty of their buildings, and the vast volume
of building construction that is yearly carried on in the process of that
growth. But a careful analysis shows us that that great volume of

Fig. 39.

Note Effect of a Fire Upon the Stone Work of the Upper Parts of
a Tall Building

building is not all growth but is, to a very great extent indeed, but
the replacing of buildings that have been destroyed by fire. And
that destruction, a most senseless and cruel waste, has had a pro-
portionate increase, year by year, far in excess of the pro rata of our

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES'

Fig. 40. The Effect of Fire Upon Unprotected Steel Construction

Fig. 41. After the $15,000,000 Fire in Toronto, April 19, 1904

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 55

new buildings or indeed of many other details of our rapid growth.
In 30 years our population has increased 73 per cent, our fire losses
134 per cent. In this country we deal in big figures and it would
almost seem as if we were as proud of our appalling wastes as we are
of our mammoth productions. At least one would judge so by the
complacency with which we contemplate a drain upon our resources
that would be deemed positively intolerable in any other country.
One Year's Fire Losses. Let us see whatji year — an average
year — has meant in this fire matter. In the forty leading cities,
building construction for new buildings and repairs to old ones
reach a total value of $478,000,000 in the year, or a grand total
in all the cities and towns of $570,000,000. Now then, during the
same period we permit to be destroyed by fire, buildings and contents
to the value of $218,000,000. Incidentally, the reader will please
remember that inmost transactions where "losses"occur, those losses
resolve themselves generally into transmutations or exchanges. In
financial matters where one man loses the other gains; in more
scientific operations fuel, for instance, is consumed but produces
steam, power. They say that nothing is utterly lost, but we also
know in this fire proposition nothing is left but ashes and smoke.
It is not an exchange. The destruction of value is absolute, for so
far we have exceedingly little use for ashes, and smoke has not yet
been turned into anything valuable commercially or scientifically.
Add to the value of property destroyed, the cost of maintaining fire
departments, fire-fighting apparatus, high water pressure, and city
and private efforts at stopping fire when it ha3 once started, some-
thing like $300,000,000 a year. Then, in a further effort to recoup
ourselves after fire has laid waste our property, we have gambled
with the insurance companies in a bet that our buildings would burn.
During the year we pay those companies in fire-insurance premiums
on buildings and contents $316,000,000. They pay us back in
adjusted losses $135,000,000, so that the difference between those
two sums, $181,000,000, is the amount we pay those companies for
the privilege of getting back a little over half of the value of the
property we permit to be destroyed by fire. Apply the paid losses
of $135,000,000 on the burned value of $218,000,000, and the net
loss in property value is $83,000,000, the cost of fire ' "protection"
of all kinds is $300,000,000, and the amount we give the insurance

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 42. Damage by Water — $1,000 a Minute While These Three Nozzles Are Being
Played Upon the Costly Contents of a Warehouse

Fig. 43. Searching For the Dead After a Fatal Fire

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

TABLE II
Fire Data — Foreign

POPULATION

FIREMEN

FIRES PER YEAR

Rome

500,000

200

170

Venice

151,000

125

Florence

205,000

128

160

Milan

500,000

240

764 (60% false alarms)

Zurich

168,000

18 regular

2000 volunteer

Strasburg

167,000

210

Copenhagen

500,000

280

194

Bordeaux

300,000

204

166

companies to guarantee us some reimbursement for our losses is
$181,000,000, so that the total of destroyed values and incidental
costs of fire for the year is $564,000,000. Compare this figure that
we might call destruction, with the new buildings added, $570,000,000,
or what we might call production, and the result is not one of which
we have any reason to be proud.

American vs. Foreign Fire Losses. Eliminating the considera-
tion of the cost of fire-fighting, we have destroyed in property values
$4,500,000,000 worth in the past 33 years, and including fire pro-
tection the cost has amounted to about $9,000,000,000 in that time.
Again eliminating all incidental expense, fire alone has cost us in
1909, $2.72 per capita. Compare that to the fire losses in Euro-
pean countries and you will realize how far behind them we are in
fire prevention. In France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria,
and Denmark the general average is a trifle less than 33 cents per
capita. In Italy it is as low as 12 cents and in Germany it has never
been above 49 cents. In thirty of the principal foreign cities the
average was 51 cents, while in 252 of our cities the average was $3.10.
In Table II is shown the small personnel of the foreign fire depart-
ments and the few fires they have to combat:

The Paris fire department costs but $600,000 a year for main-
tenance. The city holds 3,000,000 people and the year's fires amount
to about $2,000,000. London with 5,000,000 people has a depart-
ment that costs but $1,500,000 for maintenance and responds to
5,280 alarms.

Now compare with these figures those given in Table III which
tell the fire-story in our own country.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

TABLE III
Fire Data United States

PER-

COST OF

POPULATION

NUMBER
OF ALARMS

CENT-
AGE OF

FALSE
AL'RMS

PROPERTY

Loss

MAINTENANCE
OF FIRE DE-
PARTMENT

New York

5,000,000

15,000

10%

$7,250,000

$7,000,000

Chicago

2,000,000

10,640

25%

4,100,000

3,000,000

St. Louis

600,000

3,292

.07%

1,300,000

1,100,000

Boston

580,000

3,910

10%

3,608,000

1,060,000

Cleveland

400,000

2,500

829,000

679,000

Minneapolis

300,000

1,832

40%

1,060,000

476,000

Washington, D. C.

300,000

960

80%

320,000

604,000

Glasgow's fire loss averages $325,000, Boston's (with a less
population) $2,000,000. Berlin with a population of 3,000,000
averages $200,000 and its fire department costs $300,000; compare
these figures with Chicago's, a city of two-thirds the population. In
Europe they will average .86 fires per 1000 population, while here
the average is 4.05.

The equipment of our fire departments is most complete, devices
of all kinds and men in abundance, trained athletes, and they need
to be all of that and most skilled, for they have enough to do. In
New York, for instance, there are 4,264 firemen in 159 companies.
They have 55 ladder companies, 4 water towers, 7 fire boats for the
river front, and daily use 1,400 horses.

The European city that has a loss of $300,000 a year deems itself
sorely tried; with us, a city that has not a loss of a couple of millions
feels, it would seem, as if it were being outclassed by its competitors
in stupidity — on this subject, at least. Indeed, in this matter of our
fire losses, caused by our slovenly mode of building, we have become
the laughingstock of all Europe.

NOTE. It is a peculiar coincidence that in the great mass of statistics
I have gathered, even from the small towns, the cost of fire and the cost of
maintenance of the fire department has run pretty close together.

Analysis of Fire Losses in the United States. In an analysis of
the fire loss the fact stands out prominently that much of it is due
to fires that extend beyond the limit of the buildings in which they
started. It is impossible, from the figures obtained during the in-
quiry, to give any definite statement as to the amount of the losses
due to exposure, but some years ago prominent underwriters estimated

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

that at least 27 per cent of the fire loss comes from fires that extend
beyond the buildings in which they originate. These losses are
undoubtedly due to the inflammable construction of buildings, for
in Europe, where more resisting construction prevails, there is no such
loss from this source, fires being more readily confined to the build-
ings in which they started. It is even more notable that only
$68,000,000 of the loss in the United States was on buildings of
brick, concrete, stone, and other slow-burning construction material,
while double that amount, or about $148,000,000, was on frame
buildings. (Our 1909 reports.)

Fig. 45. The Remains of a $500, 000 Home

$15,000 taken from the elaboration and put into fireproofing would have made such
destruction impossible.

The loss is rather evenly divided between the urban and the
rural population, the total loss in the cities and villages amounting
to $107,093,283 and in the rural districts to $107,991,426. The
total urban population is estimated at 42,160,710 and the rural
at 43,162,051. The big losses in the cities and villages are not sur-
prising, for in these are located many buildings filled with millions
of dollars' worth of property. These buildings are subject to an ad-
ditional risk because they adjoin or are near one another. In the
rural districts the buildings are widely separated and contain prop-

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

62 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

erty that does not compare in value with that in the cities, yet the
losses are as great in these districts. The only conclusion that can
be drawn from this condition is that the remarkable efficiency of
the fire departments of the cities prevents a much greater loss than
really occurs and that the absence of fire-fighting apparatus in the
rural districts permits the loss in fires to be total.

This fact is plainly shown in the total building loss of the coun-
try, the fire departments keeping the loss in cities and villages down
to $50,173,625, while fires in the rural districts consumed buildings
valued at $58,983,269.

The contents loss in the cities and villages \vas $56,919,658
as against $49,008,157 in the rural districts, which again proves the
contention, in spite of the great loss in the rural districts, as it is
well known that the value of the property in city buildings is many
times greater than that in buildings in rural communities.

The losses on brick, stone, and steel buildings in the cities and
villages amounted to $19,816,474 and on contents to $29,092,270;
in the rural districts the losses on these buildings were $11,276,213
and on the contents $8,240,310. The much heavier losses in the
cities and villages on the brick, stone, and steel buildings are un-
doubtedly due to the few buildings of this character in the rural dis-
tricts in comparison to the number in the cities.

The'losses on frame buildings in the cities and villages amounted to
$30,357,151 and on the contents to $27,827,388; in the farming com-
munities the losses on these buildings reached a total of $47,707,056
and on the.contents $40,767,847. This once more tells of the efficiency
of the fire departments in coping with the flames in cities and vil-
lages and the utter lack of fire protection in the rural districts.

Since the year 1866 the losses by conflagrations in the United
States have amounted to $936,551,135, according to tables prepared
by the National Board of Fire Underwriters. By "conflagrations"
is meant all fires involving a loss of half a million or more dollars.
According to the same authority the conflagrations of 1907 cost the
United States $18,475,000. The loss by conflagratio\i in 1908 ex-
ceeded that of the preceding year by a large sum, one conflagration
alone, that at Chelsea, Mass., on April 12 and 13, involving an in-
surance loss of $8,846,879, as reported by the underwriting companies
to the Massachusetts insurance commissioner.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

The fact that no other country suffers such enormous con-
flagration losses has led to a general investigation of the causes by
fire underwriters, fire marshals, officials of states and municipalities,
and students of economic conditions, and the conclusion reached is
that the great loss is due mainly to poor and defective construction
of buildings and equipment. The investigation has further disclosed
the probability that an increase in the number and severity of con-
flagrations may be expected until there is a decided improvement
in methods of construction.

The danger of conflagration is present in every city and village
of the United States, and with it the possibility of large loss of life.
The most efficient fire department in the country is powerless when
once a fire gets under considerable headway in a locality where bad
construction prevails.

Losses in Treeless States vs. Losses in Timber States. Another
illustration of the influence of frame buildings on the fire loss of the
country is suggested by the grouping in Table IV of eleven states
which are practically treeless and comparing them with eleven states
in which there is still an abundance of timber, the argument being
that there will be a greater proportion of frame buildings in the
states where lumber is plentiful because of its cheaper price. Table

TABLE IV
Fire Loss in Treeless States

STATES

TOTAL
POPULATION

TOTAL FIRE

Loss

LOSS PER

CAPITA

Iowa, Illinois, Oklahoma, Con-
necticut, Delaware, New Jer-
sey, South Dakota, Rhode
Island, } Kansas, Nebraska,
and North Dakota.

16,785,460

$38,606,558

$2.30

TABLE V
Fire Loss in Timber States

STATES

TOTAL
POPULATION

TOTAL FIRE
Loss

LOSS PER

CAPITA

Washington, Louisiana, Texas,
Mississippi, Wisconsin, Ar-
kansas, Michigan, Pennsyl-
vania, Minnesota, Oregon, and
North Carolina.

23,569,533

$73,895,950

$2.89

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

V shows that in states where there is a supply of lumber there is an
increase per capita loss of 59 cents over the per capita loss of the
treeless states.

The remarkable feature is the per capita loss in the South
Central states — Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Lou-
isiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, namely, $3.66, more than
$1 in excess of the per capita loss in any of the other divisions. All
of the states in this division except Oklahoma, contain much timber,
and therefore many frame buildings. These states also have the
handicap of inefficient fire protection as compared with the states
of the North and East. The total losses and the loss per capita
according to geographic divisions are shown in Table VI.

TABLE VI
Fire Loss per Capita— United States

STATES

TOTAL
POPULATION

TOTAL FIHE

Loss

LOSS PER

CAPITA

North Atlantic
Maine, New Hampshire, Ver-
mont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

23,779,013

$59,447,532

$2.50

South Atlantic
Delaware, Maryland, District of
Columbia, Virginia, West Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida.

11,574,988

$25,349,223

2.19

North Central
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas.

29,026,645

$68,793,148

2.37

South Central
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
Oklahoma, Arkansas.

16,368,558

$59,908,992

3.66

Western
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado,
New Mexico, Arizona, Utah,
Nevada, Idaho, Washington,
Oregon, and California.

4,783,557

$12,676,426

2.65

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 65

Comparative Figures. Cities of Austria, Belgium, France,
Germany, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom,
with a reported population of 19,913,816, had a loss of but $9,582,340
—a per capita of 48 cents. Russia had the highest loss, $3,100,823 in
a population of 2,673,427, a per capita loss of $1.16. If the United
States had Europe's per capita of 48 cents in a total population
estimated by the Census Bureau for 1907 as 85,532,761, the total
fire waste in this country for the year would amount to $41,055,725,
a saving of natural resources to the extent of $174,028,984. With
the maximum per capita loss in Europe $1.16 (in Russia), the fire
waste in the United States would amount to $99,218,002, or
$116,314,759 less than the actual.

The principal reason for the great difference between the amount
of fire waste in the United States and Europe is that there are but few
frame buildings in Europe, and practically none in the great cities.

The results obtained indicate that the total annual cost of
fires in the United States, if buildings were nearly as fireproof as
in Europe, would be $90,000,000, and therefore that the United
States is paying annually a preventable tax of more than $366,000,000,
or nearly enough to build a Panama Canal each year!

The average annual cost of maintaining fire departments in
European cities and in American cities has been noted, from which
it appears that the cost in European cities is 20 cents per capita,
and in corresponding cities in the United States $1.53 per capita,
or seven and one-half times as great. It is reasonable to assume
that when building construction in the United States shall have
reached a condition similar to that in Europe our annual cost on
this item alone may be reduced from more than $25,000,000 to
$3,000,000, or to less than one-seventh of the present total. In like
manner the annual cost of fire in the United States in comparison
with similar cost in Europe, shows that the total per capita cost
in this country is nearly five times that in Europe, indicating a pos-
sibility of reducing the grand total of this cost from $456,000,000
to $90,000,000, or nearly one-fifth of the present total. It will be noted
that the per capita costs in this country and in Europe, which make
up these total figures, are almost equally divided between the fire
losses and the annual expense of fire protection, and that the ratio
of these in the United States and in Europe is nearly the same.

66 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

In March, 1907, the Featherstone Street fire occurred in
London, involving the loss of $750,000. It created a great stir
at the time. The European papers commented that it was one of
the biggest fires that ever burned in Europe in 40 years. Upon all
of that continent during that period only 48 fires ever equaled or
exceeded its cost! Such fires here get scarce a paragraph in our
papers.

In June, 1908, there was a fire at Frederichstad, Norway.
Twenty-three buildings were destroyed, a loss of $560,000. It set
all Europe talking. In all the British Kingdom, last year, there
was but one fire of $400,000, one of $300,000, one of $250,000, and
only 35 of over $50,000.

Dublin's fires mean a loss of only 24 cents per capita.

The buildings burned in this country in a year, assuming them
to be 65 feet wide, would, if placed side by side, line both sides of a
street long enough to extend from Chicago to New York.

Of course averages are an unsatisfactory comparison, they can
be made to suit any purpose, and are juggled into all sorts of argu-
ments, chiefly to prove political theories, but, after all, they are our
only means of comparison. Accordingly we may say that year in
and year out our fire losses in and on buildings average $16,130,000
a month, while our building record new buildings and repairs, amount
to $45,800,000! The wide divergence in months, however, may be
appreciated when we note, for instance, that one month the ratio
will be $24,000,000 of fires and $16,000,000 of building and the
very next $11,000,000 of fires and $52,000,000 of building. It may
be remarked, however, that the heaviest fire months are naturally
the winter ones, when heating plants are in full blast and stores and
homes, etc., are lighted early in the afternoon. And, of course,
the heaviest building months are the summer ones.

Still dealing with averages, the fire loss of the average major
city in this country is $1,500,000; in European cities of the same
size it is $50,000.

In New York, for example, each fire alarm costs the city, in
its pro rata of maintenance, etc., $481.17. Fully 10 per cent of the
alarms are false ones. The percentage of loss per fire is heavier in
London than in New York, but the fires in the latter city are infinitely
more numerous.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 67

During the past yeai the school and college fires have been
fewer in number than the average of other years, only a few over
a hundred fires having occurred in such buildings The great loss
of life in the Collingwood school fire attracted so much attention
that, the country over, better school buildings were demanded and
are now in use. We learn slowly, pitifully slowly, and each move
must be preceded by an awful lesson. We have had such lessons in
theaters and in schools and are mending our ways there; probably
the next great lesson will be in a department store fire or an apart-
ment house holocaust. But even though but about one hundred
school fires did take place that meant that the lives of twenty-five
thousand children were in grave peril during this one year's time.
Surely we can give the subject still more attention and yet not be
overdoing it.

We average 3 theaters, 3 public halls, 12 churches, 10 schools,
2 hospitals, 2 asylums, 2 colleges, 6 apartment houses, 3 depart-
ment stores, 2 jails, 26 hotels, 140 flat buildings, and nearly 1600
houses, burned up or partially destroyed every week in the year.
In 25 years, 34 capitols, 723 court houses, 1,960 city halls, 163 public
libraries, and 1,424 banks have also gone the fire route.

The totals in these figures comprehend fire losses of and on
ships and boats plying upon our inland waters, lakes, rivers, etc.,
but take no account of cargoes in foreign bottoms that may have been
destroyed while in our sea-ports. The loss in ships and boats is
not great. A boat is generally isolated, not endangered by its neigh-
bors, there is better discipline than in any building, men are trained
to watch for fire and to extinguish it in its incipiency and there is
always an abundance of water. Serious fires on boats are almost as
rare as those in fire department stations.

Depletion of Timber and Iron Supply and Its Remedy. We have
ruthlessly destroyed whole forests in getting out the choice timber,
and our methods generally, with timber, are criminally extravagant.
Then, largely through our own carelessness, fire has helped to com-
plete the destruction. Some years as much as 10,000,000 acres are
burned over. Last year was a particularly disastrous year in our
forests. Figures can only be wildly approximate but certainly
$80,000,000 of "ripe" lumber was burned and fully $90,000,000 of
new forest growth.

68 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

In the national forests, owing to Forestry Bureau methods
arid protection, though there were more fires in 1909 than 1908
the loss was not so great. Only 300,000 acres were burned over.
Nearly 80 per cent of the fires were extinguished before as much as
5 acres had been damaged, the patrol system is so thorough, in spite
of the small appropriation made for that work.

NOTE. In October, 1910, the forests of northern Minnesota were ablaze,
one of the worst fires in the history of our forest depletion. Whole towns of
considerable size were swept away. Reports show that over 300 lives were
sacrificed, and damage to property, towns, and timber to the value of at least
$40,000,000. The Duluth Evening Herald sapiently remarks:

How long will Minnesota lie asleep at the gateway of her natural resources,
while fire and thievery despoil her heritage?

How many more disastrous forest fires must there be before the state
adopts a sound and aggressive policy of safeguarding her own property and
that of her people?

How many more times must the settlers in northern Minnesota be
scourged from their blazing homes by forest fires caused by neglect before the
state takes from its bursting treasury the funds needed to patrol the forests?

How many more lives must be offered up as sacrifices to the state's
neglect? How many more frontier villages must be laid waste? How many
more thrifty toilers who devote their lives to redeeming the wilderness must
be ruined for their pains? How many more winners of the wilderness, the
most useful citizens in all the state, must go wandering homeless, unsheltered,
hungry, and cold, out of their fire-swept clearings to become subjects of tem-
porary charity?

The state of Minnesota owns vast riches in the north. It is true that
much of its timber has gone for a song, and that much of it has been stolen;
but much, too, is left, even after the series of forest fires that have swept over
the north because the state has not thought it worth while to establish an
efficient forest service.

The state owns vast areas of rich land, to which it invites settlers.

Yet the state lets its timber lands go practically unguarded.

It leaves its settlers surrounded by inflammable woods which it does
not guard against fire.

It does not build roads over which the settler can get his products to
market, and over which he might escape when fire sweeps through the woods.

The state's neglect of its resources is criminal. It is unfair to its own
interests, and cruel to those to whom it looks to make its wildernesses blossom.

It is short-sighted folly — worse, it is wicked and wanton waste of lives
and property — private as well as public.

So indifferent has the state been to its natural resources that it does not
even know what it owns. It knows how many acres belong to it, and some-
thing about how much timber there is on its lands. It knows nothing about
what part of its possessions are fitted for agriculture, what part should be
devoted to reforestation, and what part, being fitted for nothing else, might
be turned into game preserves and pleasure grounds.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 69

The state should survey its lands and take an inventory of its possessions.
It should patrol its forests, build roads and trails, help the settlers, make it
possible for other settlers to come in, and it should change its land laws.

It should create a department to which lands, game and fish, forests
— all the state's domain — shall be committed, with fully prescribed powers
and duties.

Nothing less than a complete revolution in the state's methods of hand-
ling its heritage is required.

The Forest Service and Conservation have their opponents,
strange as it may seem. It is always so. Never has anything sen-
sible been advocated but that some "vested interest/' some one
who benefits by the "insensible" way of doing things, bobs up to
oppose it and always, mark you, in the "name of the people/' The
editor of the Chicago Evening Post touches upon that feature rather
nicely in a recent editorial:

The attention of the congressional opponents of the cause of conservation
is directed to the devastation in the wake of the fire in the woods of northern
Wisconsin. The forests destroyed were held in private ownership, and there
was no adequate force of rangers and fire-fighters to guard the property and
to check the progress of the flames at a time when checking was possible.

One United States senator, an ardent opponent of forest reserves, has
said that forest fires are Nature's cleaning process. Nature is cruel in its
kindness. In Wisconsin, in applying its remedy to a disease that neither
the senator nor anyone else has yet diagnosed, it destroyed $3,225,000 worth
of property and made 300 families homeless.

Fires in the Michigan forests in the late spring and early summer laid
waste a great section of country and caused an enormous property loss. If
the dry weather continues fire will probably occur in the lower Appalachians
and in the Adirondacks. The history of destruction repeats itself year after
year in the woodlands which are not under government or state control.
The rangers of the United States Forest service by their alertness and energy
have kept at a minimum the fire losses in the tracts under their charge

There is a prevailing impression that if forests pass under the control
of the state or the general government, the timber supply will be locked up
and a famine in the product will result. The legislation to give into govern-
ment keeping a great area of timber land in the White Mountains and in the
Southern Appalachians is not intended to prevent lumbering by private enter-
prise. The lease system will be authorized and the timber will be taken out
under the supervision of experts who will see that waste is prevented, so that
the country still may use its wood and have it.

The known supplies of high-grade iron ore in this country,
estimated at more than 4,788,000,000 tons, cannot be expected to
last beyond the middle of this century unless the present increasing
rate of consumption is curtailed. There are in addition about

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

75,000,000,000 tons of low-grade iron ore which will undoubtedly
be used to some extent as the price of iron advances. The supplies
of stone, sand, gravel, clay, cement, lime, and slate are practically

Fig. 47. Where Extremes Meet — Heat and Cold

inexhaustible, and as the supplies of timber and iron are depleted
and the prices of these are increased it is evident that the United
States must turn to concrete-making materials, clay products, and
building stone as substitutes for wood and iron.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 71

Another waste of structural materials that is closely related
to the fire loss, is that involved in the use of iron and steel that are
placed undergound in city water mains or used in pumping plants to
provide a water supply for conflagration protection in excess of that
needed for ordinary uses. The investigations reported herein in-
dicate that 22 per cent of the total expenditure on behalf of public
water supply is due to additional service necessary for protection
against fires of such magnitude that they may spread beyond the
building in which they started. There are 2,000,000 tons of metal,
valued at $127,000,000 and 350,000 hydrants, valued at nearly
$30,000,000, in the systems provided for fighting fires of conflagration
dimensions.

The mineral materials available for structural purpose may be
divided into two classes: (1) iron, steel, copper, nickel, and
their manufactures, the supplies of which are limited and which
are themselves subject to destruction through weathering, fire, and
other causes; (2) stone, clay products, and cement and concrete
manufactures, which are less subject to destructive agencies and
the supplies of which are practically inexhaustible.

In building and construction work, the substitution of the ma-
terials of the second group for the most commonly used wood and
metal manufactures should be encouraged as having an important
influence on the preservation of the supplies of the more perishable
and scarcer materials. The use of building stone and clay and
cement products in this country has been restricted by competition
with the much cheaper products and the more easily fabricated and
available metal products. Improved methods of preparing the
raw materials for use in building construction are, however, rapidly
diminishing the difference in cost, and careful investigations as to
their structural qualities and the more suitable structural forms would
have an important influence in further reducing this difference in
cost and in enlarging the use of the more permanent materials.

Fireproof Construction the Only Adequate Protection. Surely
we have had figures enough to clearly establish and to firmly impress
even the layman that fire can be said literally "to be eating at the
very vitals" of our economic structure. It is one of the big factors
in the wanton destruction of life, some years as many as 6,000 lives
having been sacrificed, while last year the record showed a loss of

Fig. 48. The Singer Tower Building

This is seen through the Narrow Canyon of one of its neighboring streets. Think of
the havoc fire could play in the very tall buildings both sides of these dismally narrow
streets, unless all the windows are protected. Probably not over half a dozen buildings
out of many hundreds are so protected, yet nearly all of them are expensively "fire-
proofed as far as the structiires are concerned, though the finish is almost invariably
of expensive wood and the exteriors are often of granite and marble. These buildings
cost hundreds of millions; house thousands of humans, and contents to the value of other
hundreds of millions, and offer them absolutely no protection from fire, Malignant,
criminal, atrocious ignorance or carelessness.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 73

1,449 lives and 6,000 people seriously injured. It ranks but little
below our murderous railways that in a recent span of but three
months killed 149 people and maimed 16,937! And yet all of us
live and do business in buildings where we are constantly exposed
to danger by fire, for there are very, very few buildings where fire
is not only possible but very probable. However, let us set aside such
broad terms and base our calculations solely upon the actual num-
ber of fires that do occur, and we find that fully 36,000 lives are
daily in actual peril — that is, daily this many people get out of burn-
ing buildings, are carried out by firemen, or otherwise rescued just
in time to escape death. Many causes have contributed to this
deplorable condition. One is that our people are naturally reckless
and careless and build as they do much else, merely for the moment.
Then, too, until very recently our lumber supply has seemed in-
exhaustible and it was the material with which buildings could be
erected with greatest rapidity and least initial cost. The pioneer
could not be expected to haul brick and steel into the wilderness when
he had trees all around him from which he could fashion his rude
habitation. Pioneer settlements grew into villages and the villages
into cities and the habit of building of wood stuck to them. Why,
even last year, with the price of lumber 100 percent higher than it
was ten years ago and with incombustible materials available every-
where and at low cost, we still built 61 per cent of the year's con-
struction of wood! In the older communities, in Europe, they
have got well over their pioneerdom and lumber has never been so
plentiful as with us, and the authorities have had more forethought
and realized the necessity of better construction so that the general
average of the buildings in cities, towns, and villages is infinitely
less inflammable than is the average here. But from that it must not
be deduced that the science of building is carried to greater perfection
there than here. That seems an anomalous condition but a fact it is,
nevertheless, that our architects and engineers know a great deal
more about fireproof construction and practice it to a far higher degree
of perfection than do the architects and engineers of Europe. They
really have nothing to compare with our superior buildings. Take,
for instance, the Singer Tower in New York, and, regardless of its
height, there is nothing in Europe to compare with it in the way of
fire-resisting qualities. The trouble with us is that there are so few

74 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

of those buildings. We have something like 12,000,000 structures
in the country, but of that vast number there are but 8,000 in which
much effort has been made at fire-prevention! It is our average
construction that is so poor and that makes sucha bad showing as
compared with Europe. You can readily see that in a city composed
of buildings which, although not fireproof, are comparatively incom-
bustible, the fire hazard is much less than it is in a city of fire-traps
with a few perfect buildings scattered here and there. And, too,
in order to resist fire those fireproof buildings have to be super-
latively perfect, because there is so much fuel all around them that
a fire attack against them is vigorous in the extreme. In Euro-
pean cities the big and important buildings need not be so perfectly
constructed because the danger of fire from within is always the
minimum and the danger of fire from without is not very great on
account of the superior general quality of construction. There,
it is seldom that a fire gets beyond the building in which it originates;
the owner is responsible for the damage to his neighbor's property
if it does; here, in spite of our splendid fire departments — and there
are none superior to them, for none have the practice and experience
they have — fires frequently extend to neighboring buildings, entire
blocks, and indeed whole sections of cities.

Municipalities, states, and even the country at large, are be-
ginning to realize the gravity of this fire-waste and that something
drastic has to be done toward fire-protection. The great trouble is that
whatever we do now can simply be an abstaining from adding fresh
fuel to burn, because we have received such a heritage of combusti-
ble buildings that it will be yet many years before those old fire-
traps will have been destroyed or torn down to be replaced with
better buildings. But a beginning has to be made sometime (for
the percentage or pro rata of fire destruction is ever increasing more
rapidly than the increase in new buildings or the percentage of
efficiency of our fire departments) and most cities of our country have
so re-vamped their building-regulations that at least within certain
districts nothing of an inflammable nature may now be erected.
But that is not enough, because immediately outside of those dis-
tricts we are permitting fire-trap construction that, in turn, will be
the inheritance of our successors and will be in congested districts
and will prove almost insuperable barriers to real progress. The

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 75

thing to do is to absolutely prohibit inflammable construction, the
use of wood, in the structural parts of buildings erected anywhere
within the jurisdiction of the city, and the state should not be far
behind in restricting and safeguarding the buildings in the rural
districts.

CAUSES OF FIRE

Primary Causes. Specialists, insurance experts, and fire depart-
ments zealously seek out and tabulate the direct causes of fire, attribut-
ing it to this, that, and the other thing. Simmered right down to
the final analysis we shall find, however, that the listed "causes" are
but the intervening or secondary agencies and that 999 fires out of
1,000 are very directly due to carelessness or inexcusable ignorance.

These primary causes are responsible for the terrific loss of
life and limb and property in this country. We are the most careless
people on earth. We permit a looseness of conditions, a reckless-
ness of method, or a method of recklessness which would not be
tolerated in Great Britain or Germany or France. This laxity runs
on our railroads, pervades our coal mines, meanders in our mills,
asserts itself in the slovenliness of our cities and our vacant lots, and
is traced directly to our homes along the icy sidewalks to our front
doors and the doors of our churches and public institutions. The
average American cares no more about the conditions outside the
walls of his home than he cares about the conditions on the most
distant planet. He is indifferent and unashamed.

And yet it is small wonder that men recklessly throw cigarette
stumps about and do other foolish things that cause so many of
our fires, for they are brought up with a total disregard for the pos-
sibilities of such recklessness. As little children they are not cau-
tioned enough against playing with matches — they are given toy
steam engines and that means lighting fires to operate them; the great
Fourth of July they are given numerous dollars to spend upon the
most fire producing agency known and are, that day, openly aided
and abetted in playing with fires by their fond papas. Result:
where there are 40 fires a day generally, in that same section on
the Fourth of July there are 130. Incidentally those same crackers
and fireworks result in 5,307 persons being killed, blinded, maimed,
or otherwise injured each year. Enthusiastic, unreasoning, and
disinterested patriotism surely!

76 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Secondary Causes. Now as to secondary causes, suppose that
an earthquake shakes part of a building down and fire ensues, the
damage may be attributed to earthquake. But if the building had
been properly built it would not have been shaken down and if the
materials used had not been inflammable there would have been
very little or no fire anyway. Carelessness or ignorance prompted
that mode of building and to either or both should be charged the
fire. Another secondary cause is the defective flue. If such defective
construction is not due to carelessness or ignorance what can you
attribute it to? And so it is with the entire list of causes. After the
defective chimneys, flues, and fireplaces, and heating and lighting
apparatus, come matches, sparks, and explosions followed by incen-
diarism and lightning; however, nearly one-fourth of all the fires are
labeled "unknown causes/'

One authority has carefully tabulated the fires in this country
for twenty-one years. He finds that crime or mischief fires num-
bered 31,000 out of the total of 369,298, a matter of $210,856,542
worth. Incendiarism was responsible for $199,755,000; cigarettes
and what even the layman calls carelessness caused $266,040,000;
burglars, tramps, and lunatics $8,500,000; children and matches
$1,000,000. It is notable that cigarettes alone did more mischief
than electric wires, lightning, cyclones, or earthquakes (barring San
Francisco) in the same space of time. Ashes stored in combustible
vessels, woodwork too near heating apparatus, the handling of
gasoline, and the accumulation of combustible rubbish in hidden
corners are also prolific causes of fire.

In Europe perhaps closer check is kept on alleged fire causes
than here. Of 79,931 fires lately reported 4,292 were attributed
to unknown causes; 10,884 to "exposure" (fire originating elsewhere
and carried to the premises by sparks, open windows, etc.); 15,558
to carelessness (cigarettes, lighted matches thrown in waste baskets
etc.); and 16,886 to faulty heating methods or appliances.

Incendiarism seems to be more rampant in Europe than it is
here, or else our incendiaries do their work more skilfully. How-
beit, a greater number of incendiaries, pro rata of fires, are appre-
hended there than here. Just recently a very "respected" merchant of
London was caught setting fire to his place and finally confessed
to having started six other fires in the year and several before that.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 77

In a report covering a long period an English commissioner gives
50 per cent as the number of fires that were suspicious.

Rather closely akin to incendiarism is the spirit we so often
find of not only carelessness but absolutely criminal contributory
neglect. Only a few days ago I was remonstrating with a store-
keeper for having a gas light so directly under and near a wooden
ceiling that it is only a question of time when the ceiling will be
ignited. And neither had he any hose nor buckets nor other pro-
visions to immediately extinguish an incipient fire. He complacently
assured me he would incur no expense in changing the lights nor
would he bother with any buckets. His stock was fully insured,
the building didn't belong to him, business wasn't very good anyway,
and his stock was cumbered up with old stuff, a fire didn't scare him,
and if one started he'd make it his business to take his hat and walk
out, and the fire department coula busy itself extinguishing it.
And that is exactly the spirit of a very large number of our people,
men we call absolutely honest but, to my mind, but a step removed
from actual incendiaries, criminals at heart.

New Inventions Bring New Hazards. The development of
great inventions are not without their drawbacks, no great gain
being secured without some measure of offset. This largely mani-
fests itself in the matter of fire hazards, new ones constantly pre-
senting themselves to plague fire underwriters, city fire departments,
and those directly interested in fire prevention. This was made
manifest in the deliberations of the executive committees of the
National Fire Prevention Bureau and consulting engineers of the
National Board of Fire Underwriters, which recently held meet-
ings in New York.

One matter that attracted much attention at both meetings
and consumed considerable time, was that of the fire hazard of the
film exchange. Nothing, not even automobiles, has ever developed
in this country in a manner to compare with the moving picture
show, which has become firmly established, not only in all our cities,
but in the smaller towns and villages. To such an extent has this
industry developed that it has added greatly to fire risks. A num-
ber of disastrous fires which recently originated in film exchanges
led the fire prevention experts to consider the dangers of the busi-
ness and the methods of preventing them. The film exchanges

78 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

keep constantly in stock a large supply of the rolls of motion photo-
graphs, which are rented to picture shows. The films are of cellulose,
which is not only of itself highly inflammable, but even at a normal
temperature gives off a vapor which when mixed with air is highly
explosive. The attention of the fire prevention experts was given
chiefly to methods of ventilating the storage rooms so that the ex-
plosive vapors would be carried off as fast as they were formed and
thus be prevented from massing in dangerous quantities.

Another fire hazard that has quite recently developed depends
somewhat curiously upon the installation of apparatus for the
extinction of fires, incipient blazes particularly. The new risk
which was much discussed at the recent meetings arises from the
insecure manner in which gravity sprinkling tanks are supported
on the roofs of sprinkler protected buildings. The first disaster
due to this cause occurred in St. Louis, where a match factory was
set on fire by the collapse of a sprinkler tank on the roof, and this
was almost immediately followed by another at Montreal in which
the collapse of such a tank started a fire in a printing house. A third
fire resulted from the same cause a little later in Chicago. In each
of these cases the fire was caused by the rusting of the iron supports
of the water tank. The fire prevention experts developed plans for
barring from the support of tanks all material subject to disintegra-
tion by the action of the weather.

Other fire hazards which have developed with the development
of modern inventions were under consideration at the meeting; the
oxy-acetylene blow-pipe process, by which structural steel is cut by
melting along a narrow line as easily as wood is sawed, is a process
used in welding operations. The high heat developed makes it
necessary to handle the process carefully, a number of fires having
recently originated from the explosion of tanks containing the
gases whose mixture and ignition produce the heat. Another hazard
is the portable gasoline engine, used by farmers in the harvest fields
for operating threshers and harvesters.

National Building Code. The matter that attracted the greatest
attention at both of these meetings was the problem of securing
uniformity in building methods by determining the best practice
and strongly recommending it in all sections of the country. At
present a wide difference of opinion exsists as to various operations,

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 79

notably electrical wiring, the location of stoves, and the construc-
tion of foundations for furnaces.

All these points come properly under the head of municipal
building regulations. Pretty nearly every city in the land — in the
world — indeed, is at work upon such regulations or amendments.
Local talent is usually called upon, a commission organized to write
a building code — a commission composed of an architect, an en-
gineer, a doctor, a lawyer, the usual "prominent citizen," probably
a candlestick-maker. In many cases some of these men have
never before even seen a building code; in some cases they have
sense enough to adopt almost in toto the code of some other city.
Frequently rival building interests clash. Less than a year ago there
was a serious rumpus in New York over a proposed building code,
contending factions got into a row and the thing grew into a great
political issue. As may be surmised a grand hodge-podge of regula-
tions was the result. It is eminently desirable that those laws be
clear, brief — dealing with essentials only — and uniform in cities of
the same region. Better still a uniform code for the entire country
is desirable.

The underwriters have studied and they advise such a code but
it is rather cumbersome and involved. The Society of Building
Commissioners to which the Building Commissioners or Inspectors of
nearly every city here and in most important cities of Europe belong,
and of which society I have the honor of being the Executive Officer,
has long advocated a uniform code and lately we have actually begun
to write it, a code that, through the efforts of our members, the
chiefs of the building departments of all those cities, we hope to have
adopted by every city within the next few years. For a long time
it has been my ambition to have not only the cities but the states
adopt a uniform building code. Remember that the village of
today is the city of tomorrow, outlying districts are constantly
being absorbed into cities and with their inheritance of inferior
building and fire danger. The state should regulate the min-
imum of excellence allowable in any character or class of building,
city or country, below which standard nothing should be permitted.
Then each city should, according to its class and size, add to those
initial requirements. But the states should supervise the whole
question of fire.

80 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Little by little they are coming around to the idea. Massa-
chusetts was the first to establish the office of State Fire Marshal;
then Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Missouri; and now nearly
all the states are creating such an office. The Fire Marshal tabulates
the fire losses, does what he can to lessen them, has the power of arrest
in cases of infraction of certain laws, etc., etc., and is paid generally
out of a tax upon insurance companies doing business in that state.
His office is not yet an important one and his duties and the restric-
tions he can impose to prevent fire are pitifully few, but the estab-
lishing of the office is a step in the right direction and before long
we hope to make his functions important, valuable to the State,
and of immense benefit in the protection of life and property against
fire.

FIRE EXTINCTION

Much as with the "causes" of fire, many agencies are wrongly
supposed to be preventive when they are but more or less effective
modes of extinguishing fire when it has developed. Water, auto-
matic-sprinklers, chemical fire extinguishers, and even fire insurance
are popularly, though erroneously, put under the head of "preven-
tion."

In considering what really is fire-extinguishing, water is the
forefront, the chief actor upon the stage. On board ship they now
have a machine that generates or extracts the gases from the smoke
poured out of the funnels and forces these gases into the hold or
any compartment of the ship until any fire there is absolutely choked,
smothered out — an effective and cheap mode of putting out fires.
However, this method cannot or has not yet been used on land, for
but few portions of a building could ever be' made air-tight enough
to prevent such gases from being immediately dissipated.

Many chemical engines and hand extinguishers, grenades, and
what not, are used, and effectively, upon insignificant blazes. These
contrivances are generally air-tight receptacles, tubes, corked bottles,
etc., in which, as soon as certain chemicals are upset into the water
of those appliances, a gas is generated that expels the liquid with great
force against the object on fire.- As this liquid is charged with salt,
alum, or ammonia, a coating substance is formed which does really
more good, over a small area, than much water,

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 81

Live steam is also effectively used, but, over and above all
else, water is our great fire extinguisher. The idea is to drown out
a fire. It is exactly what our greatest grandfathers did, only we apply
the water a little more scientifically than they did. They used buckets,
hand pumps, and such primitive methods while we have engines and
throw tons of water where the ancients applied a bucketful. We
indulge in wonderful steam engines, athletic firemen, scientific
chiefs, speedy horses, and fast automobiles to get to the scene of
the fire, and endow the whole performance with much eclat, pre-
cision, and such accompaniments, but it is still, as it was a hundred
or a thousand years ago, merely a matter of putting on water enough
to quench the fire. And oftentimes the zest of the firemen is such
that infinitely more damage is done by the water applied than by
the fire it puts out.

The automatic sprinkler has been a wonderful help in that
drowning-out process. The system, which is carefully explained in
all its details in Fire Insurance Inspection Part III, is briefly a series
of lines of water pipe along the ceiling of a building, these pipes being
provided with heads every few feet and a carefully constructed valve
to operate and control the water system in case of a fire. The
sprinkler heads are closed by spring valves which remain shut by
virtue of fusible metal seals. When a certain degree of heat is
reached in the neighborhood of the "head," the fusible metal melts,
releases the spring valve, and opens the heads. The lowering of the
pressure in the pipe system due to the opening of the head or heads
sounds an alarm and the fire is investigated at once and the water
turned off. In the early days of the sprinkler system it wras not
always an unmixed blessing, for sometimes it failed to close or was
opened, and a "near" flood ensued. I well remember one case, sev-
eral years ago. I had gotten a grain elevator company to install such
a system, then brand new, in one of their big elevators. The third
night of its "protective service" something went wrong with three
nozzles. There was no fire, simply an accidental opening. At any
rate they ran all night and ruined 300,000 bushels of wheat, flooding
the bins ! Naturally I was not blessed by that company, though that
experience led me to the invention of the bin-cover and scupper drains
that were at once put in all other elevators and made impossible the
recurrence of such an accident in those buildings. The natural

82 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

improvement in the mechanical appliances in connection with the
sprinkler systems and the introduction of "dry pipe" systems where
the pipes might freeze have reduced accidental "floods" to a very
small number. The installations are becoming the rule rather than
the exception, and the prompt execution of the sprinkler heads by
which so many fires are put out in their incipiency makes the auto-
matic sprinkler the most valuable and effective adjunct to fire fight-
ing that can be placed in a building.

We have noticed what fire departments and the ordinary water
service cost us in maintenance. But there are extraordinary expenses
not comprehended in those totals. For instance, New York has
installed a special fire service-water-system in the down town dis-
trict that cost $7,000,000 or $8,000,000. With that it can concen-
trate, by combining pumps, something like 50,000 gallons of water
from the river per minute at any one point in that district. And
Chicago is spending $6,000,000 for a similar fire service that is being
installed for the special protection of some 1,863 buildings constitut-
ing the "congested district."

THE INSURANCE IDEA

The strangest misapprehension of all is the ridiculous idea some
people have that in some occult way insurance is actual protection.
There are thousands of people today who imagine that the moment
an insurance policy is in force on their property, its safety is assured ;
and so keen this is superstition — though many will not admit it —
that it results in a well-defined feeling of impending disaster when the
policy has expired.

Fire Insurance has been reduced to an exact science; it is the
real application of the law of averages. About it have grown many
rules and forms; it is one of the great established businesses of the
day, and a most important one. Indeed without it, as our modern
affairs are managed, thousands of transactions now common would
be impossible and probably the wheels of progress would be badly
blocked. The science of insurance in its applications to the deter-
mination of rates, valuations, etc., will be discussed later; now we shall
consider the history of insurance, some of the abuses that have
resulted from the habit — in itself, good — and the application of Fire

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Fig. 49, Alleged "Slow-Burning" Construction
This fire lasted 45 minutes.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

Insurance from the Fire Prevention point of view. These opinions
may be looked upon as radical by the professional insurance man,
but they are the result of long familiarity with fire and the study,
at short range, of all the phases of the situation.

Fig. 50. Standard Oil Tanks Ablaze — A Dangerous Risk to Handle

Traces of insurance are found even in the times of the Pharaohs
and in early Greek and Roman history. It was a natural sequence
to trade and barter. The Emperor Claudius, in an endeavor to
encourage the importation of corn, guaranteed to make good any
loss the importers might suffer, and therefore he may be looked upon
as one of our early and most beneficent insurance men.

Many of the old Anglo-Saxon guilds or unions arranged a
species of fraternal insurance. They clubbed together in weekly

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 85

assessments from which any of the number suffering from fire,
robbery, or flood was recouped at least part of his loss. Insurance
was the subject of some laws and ordinances passed in Barcelona
as early as 1435 and we find records of its being an established,
legitimate association-function in England, in Italy, and in Holland
about that time. In England there was a full-fledged insurance
company in business in 1696 and, by the way, one of the existing
English companies is its direct lineal descendant.

Fire Insurance has ever been a most important feature of in-
surance— indeed it antedates by many years Life Insurance and the
infinite variations of the same theme. The English companies
probably take no greater, if as great, risks than do ours, but they
diversify more. There are old and financially sound companies in
England with whom you may take a chance at anything. They have
so long and varied an experience, and their tables of possibilities
and averages are so exhaustive and carefully prepared, that you can
go to them and pay a certain premium and get yourself paid for a
whole wheat crop if it rains before your harvest; if you are a merchant
and intend laying in a huge stock of goods in anticipation of the
festivities attending the crowning of a new king they will assure you
against that king's dying and ruining the sale of these goods; in fact
anything that you can think of they will take a chance at with you.

In this country you are somewhat more restricted as to the
chances a company can take and still be within the pale of the law.
Primarily established as a wise and beneficent safeguard against
possible loss attending an accident, a means by which a community
contributed a sum of insignificant units that would recoup the in-
dividual at least in part for the loss he might suffer by fire, insur-
ance has grown to be a gamble of vast proportions and far-reaching
influence, and our great Fire Insurance companies, by refusing tc
make sufficiently discriminating rates against poor building con-
struction, have enormously increased the chances of fire. To
follow the growth of the abuse of insurance might be interesting
but would be something aside from our purpose, so let us simply look
at it as it is today.

Only a few years ago the companies figured up scientifically their
ratio of losses versus premiums, but paid only scant attention as to
how buildings were built and how cities were managed from the

86 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

view-point of fire prevention. Today they have broadened out to
the point where their engineers are among the most skilful in the
country and know exactly how buildings should be constructed.
The underwriters issue very learned treatises upon model construc-
tion and build their own buildings well-nigh perfect, but that accom-
plishes comparatively little, because they do not make their rates in
consonance with their ideas of sound construction. There is not
enough difference between the rates on a superior building and those
on a very ordinary one to make people believe that there is any ad-
vantage in building properly.

To put it frankly, although the companies fear and guard
against conflagration, yet in the very nature of things it is human
for them not to look askance at very frequent small and some moder-
ately large fires. They all accelerate and improve business. The
losses are so distributed by their clearing-house methods that no
one company suffers much even from a big fire and the oftener
fires — not conflagrations — occur, the more certain people are to
insure and the larger will be the policies written and, consequently,
the larger will be the premiums. Ergo, the more fires the better;
the other man's misfortune is their gain.

A city composed entirely of fireproof buildings and in which only
some small part of the contents could possibly burn, would offer
poor opportunities for the insurance agent. Is it natural to expect
men who make their daily bread, and considerable gain, out of the
insurance business to do very much toward the realization of such
an ideal city; do you expect them to show more than half-hearted
enthusiasm toward fireproof construction?

And yet, the travesty of it all! It is to the insurance expert
that the laymen, our city authorities, our architects, and our en-
gineers go when seeking information about how building should be
done, what laws to establish, etc., and those same insurance ex-
perts can hardly be expected to advise much more stringent regu-
lations than the insurance companies and their experts exact.

The power wielded by these companies is astounding, and
they use it autocratically. To protect themselves against conflagra-
tion losses they may deem it wise for such a city to install additional
fire stations or more machines or better equipment or increased
water service. The people of those cities may have begged for just

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 87

such things for years and their appeals were unheeded, but let
the underwriters make these same demands, and the authorities
hasten to comply. The fact is, the companies are well organized
and they stand together; and consequently any ruling made by the
national board or by the local board is adhered to and sustained by
all the companies. Those united companies constitute a very real
and potent power. That they generally use it with discretion and
with little abuse is greatly to their credit, although we must not
lose sight of the fact that it is to their former laxity and to their
willingness to insure poor risks earlier in the game that must be
attributed, in great part, the conditions that now compel them, in
self-protection, to demand the additional safeguards they are in-
sisting upon.

The whole problem becomes quite clear to us if we but view it
rationally and divest it of the sentiment we usually attribute to
insurance and realize that it is merely a cold business proposition.
The companies are not interested in a city's welfare nor in that of
its citizens. It exists for the sole purpose of making money for
its members, salaries for its officers, profit for its stockholders. When
a building was erected alone in the center of a block it was not par-
ticularly exposed to external fire. It was most natural, therefore,
that the companies should make a low rate upon it even though it
was built of inferior construction. Then when another such building
was erected upon the same block, although the danger to both was
increased, still the companies could take a pretty stiff chance at the
old rate, which was sufficiently "attractive" • to convince a third
man that that sort of construction was perfectly safe and all that
was needed. He, too, built on this block; and later another. The
block began to be crowded, and the companies, realizing that it was
no longer a case of the possibility of having to pay for one building
in that block but that if fire started in one the whole lot of them were
more than apt to be destroyed, naturally raised their rates upon them
all. If another man wanted to build there he had to do it much
better than the others, his rate upon anything else than almost fire-
proof was prohibitive, the companies didn't want to assume any
more risks there, nor did they want anything to further jeopardize
the risks already written. Then they turned their attention to
"protection." The city was notified it would have to put in a fire

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

station near that block, more hydrants, and greater pressure. Not
that the companies gave a thought of the city's safety or the lives
in it, but they wanted their invested interests in those buildings pro-
tected. They had gambled with the owners of those buildings
that the latter would not be destroyed and had been paid to take
that chance and it was nothing but the part of good business to in turn

Fig. 51. The Exterior of the Underwriter's Laboratory at Chicago

The ideal fireproof building It ought to be added incidentally that it could have

been made more handsome without in any way impairing its fire-resistance.

make the city insure them that fires there would be put out as soon as
possible in order to minimize their possible losses. Figure it as you
may, the cost comes back to the "ultimate consumer/' he pays the
insurance rates and also the taxes for the "protection" demanded
by the companies for their interests. Stop and think how utterly

FIRE AND FIRE -LOSSES

90 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

stupid he is to keep on permitting both ends, as it were, to be played
against him.

The companies are in a position to enforce their demands,
too. If their "requests" for water or more firemen or apparatus
are not acceded to, up go the rates on that particular block and on
the whole city. At times they have even withdrawn entirely from a
city, cancelling all old business and declining new, until the man-
dates of their board were obeyed — an action which always brings
a city to time. The reason is plain. The people become scared,
the idea of not being able to get any insurance is indeed alarming,
and pressure is brought to bear upon the authorities. Loan companies
and banks call in their loans upon such uninsured property and for
the life of you, you could not borrow a penny to put up another
building. It has its effect upon all other business as well as build-
ing; the city is discredited, and it is not long before its council hastens
to do just what it is ordered to do by the companies — an insidious
but very present power indeed.

A commercial journal recently asked the question, "Do the
Stock Fire Insurance companies really want fire protection?" and
proceeds to answer it thus:

This question is being asked more and more every day. Through the
daily press, the companies are constantly preaching protection to the in-
suring public but what are they themselves doing to encourage, to make prac-
tical this protection? If the companies wanted to, they could cut the fire
loss of this country in half and actually wipe out the conflagration danger.

How can this be clone? By a practical recognition of Fire Protection.
The recognition at present given to Fire Protection is to a very large extent
without result. The National Board of Underwriters "adopts" standards,
it "approves" devices and systems, it "recommends" their use, but in this, as
in other things, it is money that talks, or to put it in insurance language, it
is "the rate that counts."

What is the rate for Fire Protection? 1 3 it given proper consideration
by the rating organizations, that is, the local boards and exchanges?

What steps, for instance, a~e being taken to find out the loss ratios for
Protected Risks as against Unprotected Risks?

What difference is made between approved devices and unapproved de-
vices?

Are the devices that have met all the specifications given a rating accord-
ing to their efficiency as actual loss savers, or according to their value as under-
writing safeguards, or according to their cost of manufacture and installation?

Fire Protection has become an issue between the insurance companies
and the insuring public.

FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES 91

The public is buying devices and systems that prevent and extinguish
fire. When the property owner pays for the Fire Protection, he expects to
save insurance premiums, because the use of these devices means less fire loss
and this in turn should mean a cheaper insurance.

What are insurance companies doing to really promote Fire Protection?

There are two sides to the question, of course. The com-
panies offer the bait to gamble and the people gobble it up with
avidity, hook and all. The average man when building does not begin
proceedings by inquiring how his building had best be constructed,
but he asks what do the insurance companies insist upon. He
figures on the most "liberal" or slovenly way in which they will per-
mit building for a certain rate which he deems satisfactory, and the
two together form such a combination as to make possible such
appalling sacrifices to the demon of fire as we have witnessed in
Baltimore and San Francisco and will witness, in due course, in New
Orleans and in Boston, aye, and in a modified form in New York,
and in Chicago and in Washington, too. There has been such an
orgy of bad building that, do what we can now, in our newer struc-
tures, there is enough fuel in every city in the Union to give us in
each — the conditions and "accidents" being propitious — nearly as
great a bonfire as occurred in Baltimore and San Francisco.

Oh, yes, the people are to blame, as are the habitues of any
gambling place. Two things are necessary to cure the evil; one is
to educate the people as to the folly of ultra-gambling and the other
is to regulate the gambling-house. The local agents of the different
companies are interested, not in good building, but in premiums,
and they will try their very best to get their companies to accept
what every one recognizes as a questionable risk. Poorly-constructed
and ill-protected buildings in congested districts have been and are
being insured at such rates as to make the propagation of their species
appear to be profitable. Innocent people who are guided by the
slight difference in rates build their houses flimsily with the idea
that it is economy; shysters and jerry-builders build flats of beautiful
exterior and fire-trap construction, buildings that will look well for
a few days until they are sold or rented, and what is more they get
a moderate "rating" upon them, and city governments are too com-
placent to prohibit such construction (their efforts are generally in
the direction of more water and larger fire departments), the in-
dividual does not know any better or does not care, and there you are.

92 FIRE AND FIRE LOSSES

For years people have "enjoyed," so to speak, these comparatively
low rates of insurance until vast aggregations of flimsy buildings
are everywhere about us. Then suddenly there is a big fire that
the companies had not planned for or counted upon, and up go the
rates upon the old as well as upon the new buildings, virtually a case
of getting people in such a fix under false pretense. The San Fran-
cisco affair was along that line. A ridiculously low rate was made
on buildings there, practically a 90 per cent frame risk. But
the rate was made, forsooth, because San Francisco enjoyed the
advantage of a most excellent fire department. Of what avail was
it? What promise have we that similar or some other form of acci-
dent will not impair the usefulness of a dozen other fire departments?
Now that the insurance companies have been singed there, some
of them out of existence, up go the rates on everything new and old
in San Francisco because it has been proven a "poor risk" and, at
the same time, the rates have been raised pretty much everywhere
else, so that the companies can recoup themselves for this run of bad
luck. The accumulations of years in the sinking fund apparently
were not sufficient to pay salaries, dividends, and these great losses,
too. In St. Louis, for instance, the raise has been from 25 per cent
to 100 per cent. Paper warehouses in the congested district have
been mulcted $2.50 per $100 instead of the previous rates, $1.20;
box factories $5.50, formerly $3.60; tobacco plants $1.95, formerly
90c; and so on.

I happen to have before me just now editorials from a number
of Minnesota papers, growling about the excessive rates in that state.
They complain that the companies have collected nearly $9,000,000
in premiums this past year, a sum equivalent to quite $4 per
inhabitant. The losses paid by those same companies amounted
to only $2 per capita while the actual fire loss was a trifle over $3
and in the cities the cost of fire department maintenance was quite
$2 more. All this simply means that that state is keeping right in
line with the averages we have noted.

It is commonly reported that many, probably one-third of the
smaller companies (the mutuals and locals), had been, prior to the
San Francisco fire, working purely upon their "nerve." That loss
wiped out their assets and they were forced to the wall. Some of the
insurance commissioners are my authority for believing that many

FIRE AND FIRE BOSSES ; 93

more just such companies, not affected by that particular fire, are
in no better condition. Another such drain upon the general funds
and probably not over fifty companies, and those the big popular
ones only, would be able to pay up.

Late reports show us that the United States stock companies
(fire and marine) take in over $210,000,000 a year in premiums,
the foreign companies doing business here (five only) $78,000,000,
and the United States mutuals $35,000,000, a total far in excess of
the average yearly rate given in our statement of average cost of
Insurance. And these rates and premiums are, of course, increasing
amazingly every year.

In France, in Belgium, and in fact, in most of Europe, they guard
against incendiarism and also carelessness by making it impossible
for a man to recover insurance for a fire that originates upon his own
premises. Furthermore, neighbors whose property is damaged by
fire originating upon his own premises, fire caused by his careless-
ness or neglect, have right of recovery from him. This has a wondrous
effect in making people store waste paper carefully, look to their
ash-barrels, and exercise some discretion in dallying with fire pos-
sibilities generally.

This one feature, the "neighboring risk," we should hasten
to adopt, for it has long obtained in European countries and is an
evidence of the very highest civilization. Its importance cannot
be exaggerated. It would be worth more to us than 100 per cent in-
creases in all our fire departments, for it would cultivate carefulness
on the part of owners and occupants of buildings and make them co-
operate with the fire departments in keeping down fires. It is some-
thing that has to be done by legislative authority and the insurance
companies in unison. It would work to the latter's ultimate advan-
tage, too, but so far, though we have long preached it, and its perfect
working and admirable results in Europe must be quite patent to them,
we are not conscious of the slightest efforts on their part to secure
the necessary legislation to put it in force. It will have to be placed
upon our statutes by dint of patient hard work on the part of a few
fire-prevention "cranks." That is the road that has been traveled
by every improvement so far secured.

To summarize: the real and only function of fire insurance is
to equalize the loss and to distribute it among all those whose prop-

94 . t: .; ;TIEE && "FIRE LOSSES

erty is insured. The insurance on a burned building does not bring
back the property that was destroyed. This loss is absolutely irre-
trievable, the property and all its value has gone forever, a waste,
real destruction. And, furthermore, the indemnity, the insurance
that is paid, is seldom as much as 75 per cent or 80 per cent of
the real value of the destroyed property, generally but 52 per cent.
Insurance in some form will probably always be necessary, but
since even with it the individual never gets back all the value that
the fire destroyed, and never the premiums paid the companies,
the sane thing to do would be to so build that insurance need cnly
be carried upon the contents, and really only upon the average con-
tents of one single unit of space in that building.

RAILWAY EXCHANGE BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.

D. H. Burnham & Co., Architects
Exterior of Cream-Tinted Enameled Terra-Cotta from Sidewalk to Cornice

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

PART I

STIMULUS TO GOOD BUILDING

You may insure from now until doomsday, and in the best
companies; you may install new water- works and buy new fire
engines and devise new extinguishers; and you may train your fire-
men ever so skilfully and make them ever so expert, and supply
them with however speedy and powerful horses and autos, but fire
will keep right on destroying individual buildings and contents and
lives and whole sections of cities, and at an ever-increasing rate and
intensity, just as long as our buildings are built as they are now —
the overwhelming majority of them. And the greater the volume
of new building done, the greater the chances of fire and the hotter
will it be, for nearly all of that new construction is but just that much
more fuel, good dry timber, for fire to feed upon.

The only fire prevention I really know of is actually preven-
tion— give fire nothing to burn and you shall have no fire. Cities
and towns and hamlets are but more or less congested aggregations
of buildings. But one out of every 1,500 of those buildings (and that
one only in the larger cities) is even moderately fire-resisting, there-
fore the other 1,499 are but invitations to fire to do its worst, a foolish
"dare" and one that is taken all too frequently. As matters stand
you have one chance in 600 of being the next one burnt out in your
vicinity. That is not such a very long chance, so even if you
are not over-public-spirited, then just plain selfishness, self-protec-
tion, should prompt you to do all you can to make that chance the
more remote. As we have observed we may do all we can, we may
make all our new buildings perfectly fireproof, and yet there is already
so much fuel all about us, so many million poorly-built fire traps, that
we have enough to supply our present rate of fire-destruction for a
good many years. It behooves us, therefore, not only to build our

2 FIRE PREVENTION

new buildings well but to make away with the old ones by removal
before fire gets them, or, at least, so to correct their worst faults as to
make them less certain of destruction — a lesser temptation to fire
to get them.

Remember this first and great essential maxim in Fire Preven-
tion: The fewer combustibles you have around, the less fuel you
supply, just that much less fire you shall have; if there is absolutely
nothing to burn there can be no fire!

We can get fairly near to that ideal only by being compelled
to travel in that direction. It is a strange and perverse way we have
of sticking to old ways, particularly to bad habits. We may know
and feel that they are wrong but we stick, nevertheless. The "most
progressive people on earth," we say, and yet we fight progress
tooth and nail. Years ago smallpox was common and its ravages
were awful. The thinking few, realizing that greater municipal
cleanliness and vaccination would curb it, finally compelled the
authorities to take these precautions— for the good of the people,
mark you. The movement was fought back every step of the way;
in places the troops had to be called out to quell riots; the people
objected to being vaccinated. Of course authority prevailed and
today smallpox is comparatively unknown. And just so has it been
with every beneficial movement, its very beneficiaries have opposed
it and made its progress oh, so very, very difficult. So with this
fire matter. It is only by municipal, state, authoritative action
that anything can be done. It will be a long day before the in-
dividual, if left to himself, will, of his own free will and inclination,
build properly because he realizes it is for his own and the commu-
nity's good.

Legislative Control. Legislative action is our only salvation
and it cannot be secured too quickly. Much has been accomplished,
cities are waking up, but there is still very much to do before we
get far beyond the mere start we have made. And our authorities,
being elected by the people, are retained in office as long only as they
please the people, even though they know so well that this or that
suggested legislation is for the ultimate good and advantage of, and
is absolutely necessary for, the people.

The cry is often, that the building restrictions are for the benefit
of the architects, or the builders, or this or that individual interest

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 3

Nothing that can make building better and safer is of any more
advantage to any individual than it is to the community.

Not only are good building laws combated, but when they are
passed every effort is made to evade them. In this the owners of
buildings are aided and abetted by their architects who, of all men,
should know better and be the mainstay, the staunch support of
wise and protective regulations. They will quibble with the building
department officers and spend every energy in securing concessions,
recessions from the letter of the law. They want to use thinner
walls than prescribed, want to go higher in the air, leave structural
portions unprotected, all sorts of ill-advised ways of reducing
the cost of a building — generally at the cost of its efficiency. Archi-
tect and owner will work their friends, pull political strings, and some
do not hesitate at even more criminal methods of having aldermen or
mayor over-rule the building department and grant "special" permits
for this or that building to be built not in strict accordance with the
law. The "special permit" is one of the worst curses of a civic gov-
ernment.

There is no public ordinance that restricts the sale of comestibles
lest a man kill himself by overeating, for, if he does, it is merely a
warning to his neighbors not to do the same thing. The community
does not legislate for the benefit of the individual. But there is
propriety in legislation intended to prevent and control contagious
diseases which may spread from the unclean or ignorant individual
who originates them, to the community at large. Although no legis-
lation aimed at prevention of contagious diseases is now held by the
public too grinding and unendurable, and no disease that can affect
the public welfare is more contagious than a conflagration, yet
comparatively little effort is made by the public to deal with it pre-
ventively. Millions are spent yearly in handling the disease after
it breaks out, but only hundreds in steps to prevent its outbreak.
Looked at fairly, it is the community at large that is the culprit since
it "suffers" fires to take place, when it really has the power to prevent
them. It looks calmly on at the expenditure annually of millions,
millions that come out of its own pockets, for the maintenance of
imperfectly effective fire departments and insurance companies, and
yet, if but one-fifth of the money spent in Chicago in this way had
been divided among the improvers of real estate so as to cover, in

4 FIRE PREVENTION

the case of each improvement, the difference in cost between com-
bustible and incombustible building, the greater part of the city would
now be indestructible. This simple method could be adopted from
today, and further generations would look with reverence on the
men that devised this system and honestly administered the details
of its application, the men, it might be added, who would have thus
also protected their own property and safeguarded their own interests
while looking to the welfare of posterity. The theory under which
advances in fireproof building have been made hitherto is largely,
if not altogether, a mistaken one. It has been the assumption that
a real estate improver, as a sane business man, should be able to
perceive how much it was to his own ultimate advantage to build
an indestructible building and so save in the long run a large amount
in insurance on building and contents. The true theory, we are
convinced, is that incombustible buildings must be built. It is really
immaterial to the taxpayers whether an individual elects to let his
buildings be destroyed by fire, but it is of very real interest to the
public that the property of other people shall not be destroyed at
the same time. This once comprehended, it is easy to see that the
real responsibility rests on the public and not on the individual.
It is for the public then to examine the ways in which it can discharge
its duty to itself, at least cost to the taxpayer, and here, as in the
case of all other contagious diseases, time is the essence. It is de-
sirable to substitute unburnable for burnable buildings with the
shortest delay possible, since a conflagration may occur any day
and the process can better be accomplished by coaxing than by
compulsion.

Remission of Taxes. One persuasive device is the remission
of all, or the majority of, the taxes on new incombustible buildings,
until such time as the amount of taxes so remitted shall equal the
difference in cost between an incombustible and combustible build-
ing of the same size and architectural character. Or some other
scheme could be devised whereby taxes upon buildings would be
rated according to classes of construction, a heavier rate upon poor
buildings and a lighter rate upon fireproof ones.

Since the municipality has to provide protection in the way of
fire departments, in mere justice to itself it ought to see that the
minimum of protection is required. The reform in taxation sug-

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 9

gested, added to the absolute prohibition of really poor construction,
would be but a step toward ultimate municipal insurance against
fire. The fire departments in themselves constitute the first step
in that direction and are part and parcel of such insurance. Such a
remission of taxes would be equitable to all. It would place the
burden of paying for maintenance of fire departments upon those
who needed the service and would relieve those of the tax who are
public-spirited and business-like enough to build so as not to require
such service. It is part of the solution of the problem and all right-
minded men should join in the effort to bring about this much-needed
reform in taxation.

Labeling Buildings. Next and immediately necessary, the au-
thorities should conspicuously label every building of public or
semi-public nature, just as to its class of construction, "fireproof/'
"ordinary," "dangerous". As it is now, the term "fireproof" is
cruelly abused. It is applied where there is not the slightest foun-
dation for its use and is made the means of obtaining tenants and
occupants under false pretenses. A man with "dangerous" affixed to
his building would have difficulty in renting it and that would be a
powerful incentive to at least make the building better if he did not
absolutely eliminate it and build correctly.

The effrontery or ignorance of some owners of buildings is
most astounding. I have seen a hotel keeper put a metal ceiling
under his wooden joists and some corrugated iron outside a kitchen
annex, for instance, then affix a great sign with letters six feet high,
informing a credulous public that his building was "absolutely fire-
proof". The public, always more or less gullible, accepts this at
its face value and, feeling perfectly safe, goes to bed in that hotel — a
building that would last six minutes in a good fire and from which
one would be lucky to escape with his life. The misuse of the word is
really appalling; the moment an owner does any one of the very many
things that are required in a fireproof building he thinks he has re-
ceived a sort of "immunity bath" and says, "All has been done that
can be done to make that building perfectly fireproof and safe."
Then there happens a bit of a fire, which is not confined to a
small unit of that building, but spreads, thus calling more of the fire
department into play, and causing more tons of water to be poured
on. But it has too good a start, and that building and a dozen

6 FIRE PREVENTION

others are laid low. At the post mortem it is wisely decided that the
building was not "fireproof," that no building is fireproof.

Neighboring Liability. We should also have the same munici-
pal regulations that they have in most European cities relating to
"neighboring liability," to which reference has already been made.
These neighboring damages are always collectible at law in Europe
and the regulation is one of the most effective of fire preventive
measures.

Public Opinion. These are not heroic or revolutionary methods
and yet, wherever applied, they would work marvels in the way of
bettering conditions. There is too much apathy in this fire matter and
the authorities who know what it really means are fearful of apply-
ing the restrictions that are needed, because, forsooth, some of these
might too nearly touch powerful constituents or friends. We may
hope to attain the desired ends only by forcing these authorities to
do what is right via the pressure of public opinion.

It is passing strange how those things run, but interesting
withal, to find that in all reforms the masses have to be compelled
to do certain things by authority; the authorities have in turn to
apply compulsory measures by the weight of public opinion; and
public opinion in turn is moulded by a few who think, who are pub-
lic-spirited enough to take the trouble, and who are insistent
enough to stick to their point until something is won.

But when once properly started that same rather laggard public
is apt to become quite exacting over points in which it used to be
so lax. When the government first began dabbling in pure food in-
vestigations the officers were jeered at, made fun of. There was
no co-operation from the people or from the purveyors of food.
Little by little the public was shown how injurious certain "pre-
servatives" were, how cruelly befooled we had all been as to the
true nature of certain well-advertised foods. The public went
over to the correct view of the situation one at a time, then in twos,
and later in droves. Today we are mighty particular as to the
purity of the food we eat; we demand government inspection; we
insist upon proper and truthful labels; we have "seen the light" and
walk accordingly. The manufacturers, instead of refusing inspec-
tion, attempting to work in secret, throwing obstacles in the way
of the Bureau as they did at first, now greet its officers effusively,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 7

they do exactly as directed, are anxious to make a great parade of
"officially inspected" labels, and apparently are as desirous of giv-
ing the public what it pays for and thinks it is as the government
officers are. The people have awakened and they cannot be be-
fuddled into somnolence again — as far as food is concerned.
So with fire. Get the people well awake and there will be a re-
action. I venture to predict that in five years from now the "fire
specialist" will be an important factor in our city life and that the
insistent demands of the people will bring about healthy legisla-
tion on this all-important question.

A few quotations from a recent address of Mr. Went worth, the
able secretary of the National Fire Protection Association, will be
illuminating.

A distinguished Englishman, Mr. Balfour, in recently reviewing the
rise and fall of civilization, says that the main hope of the future lies in the
popularizing of scientific knowledge. There could scarcely be another
observation that would strike more clearly the very keynote of our own
thought and endeavor.

Fire prevention is a science; a science which ramifies and becomes more
elusive as civilization becomes more complex; but which, when mastered,
is wholly academic and impotent for any large measure of good until it is
popularized and made an integral part of the common intelligence.

An average of $250,000,000 per year for five years, or $500 per minute
for every hour of the twenty-four, is our country's contribution to the prop-
erty ash-heap of the world.

And yet I have not come to you today to quote the statistics of the
American fire waste, the shameful barometer of our national carelessness
and folly; nor to make melancholy predictions of our national bankruptcy
should such stupendous and unnecessary waste continue. Of these humiliat-
ing conditions you are well aware, the very existence of your organization
is a voucher of their recognition, even if the conflagrations at Dallas and
Fort Worth did not offer their blackened ruins as a mute reminder. It is
rather my present mission to join you in seeking the means and methods
whereby we may rescue our country from those embarrassing criticisms
which European prudence is coming so harshly to visit upon us.

The National Fire Protection Association, o* which body your organi-
zation is a valued and appreciated member, has for more than a dozen years
devoted itself to the consideration of fire hazards, and the compilation of
standards calculated to instruct the common understanding on the subject
of the fire waste. One might venture to say that there is hardly another pub-
lic service to which has been given so much of valuable time and voluntary re-
search by skilled and capable specialists and engineers. Year after year these
standards have been discussed in the light of cumulative experience and re-
vised and amended under such discussion, until they now represent the most
valuable and authoritative guides and data modern knowledge can produce.

8 FIRE PREVENTION

While, however, we have through the past decade been painstakingly
and laboriously compiling these standards, the observance of which we know
would eliminate common hazards and hazardous conditions, the national ash-
heap has been steadily augmenting until today we find ourselves with the re-
sults of our unselfish labors in our hands facing fire losses greater than those
of all the world and facing a public which is almost wholly indifferent to them.

Our logical course of action would seem, therefore, to be, first to arouse
the American people to a sense of their collective responsibility; and second,
so to popularize our scientific findings as to permeate with them the common
consciousness and inculcate the public habits of care respecting the fire hazard.
The American people will not avail themselves of the helps we gratuitously
offer them, until they first are conscious of the need for such helps and then
are taught to apply them. We have a public wholly irresponsible and negli-
gent of the common welfare, due to habits of waste based upon a century of
boundless opportunities in a new country. The national note of warning
regarding our national resources has, however, been uttered and such agita-
tion must be made to carry consideration of created resources as well. If our
forests are worth saving, are not our homes also? Kind Mother Nature
will in time replace the devastated tree tracts; but only the output of human
life-energy and human toil can make a city grow on the spot where another
city has stood. When that which the hand of man has builded is lost, it is
lost forever; there must be then a new creation with the inevitable human
birth-pangs as the price of it.

How then, recognizing this, are we of the fire prevention fraternity
to meet our high responsibility? How are we to reach the uninstructed
man with our scientific knowledge; and, having reached him, induce him to
reckon with it and amend his reckless habits? In the phrase of Mr. Balfour,
how are we to "popularize" the thing we know? . . .

. . . But meanwhile, those of us of lesser talents who are already being
looked to by that portion of the American public now alive to the frightful
national fire waste, can do effective service by keeping definitely in mind
the larger outlines of our profession. We must popularize our knowledge
by deliberate intent. All our public utterances must be cast in forms cal-
culated to reach and educate the man in the street; for he is the man who
controls, as far as the fire hazard is concerned, our national welfare and des-
tiny. If he cannot be taught to take the matches out of the pockets of his
discarded clothing, to cease throwing lighted cigar stubs into rubbish heaps
and extinguished matches into waste baskets; and cease doing all the other
stupid and thoughtless things with fire that make him a public menace and
a public enemy, then we must double our fire departments and our water
supplies, putting the cost of individual anarchy of this kind upon the public,
which is too inert to restrain it.

It is a singular commentary upon American acuteness that the citizens
of the United States do not yet discern that fire insurance is a tax, shifted
through the buying and selling process upon the entire community; that
every fire hazard tends to increase this tax, and that every element of fire
prevention tends to lessen it. Merchants and manufacturers must pass
along the cost of insuring goods to the people who consume those goods; how-
ever, this tax is concealed in the selling price, and the amount of rent which

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 9

every man pays for office or tenement is affected by the cost of insuring the
building occupied.

The unintelligent legal attacks sometimes made by communities upon
rating organizations are based upon the notion that the money paid by in-
surance companies in settlement of fire losses comes from some remote re-
source; from an inexhaustible treasure-house which has never to be refilled.
And yet it should be obvious that insurance companies could not continue
in business if losses were paid out of their capital; if they did not assess the
losses paid to the unfortunate individual upon a large number of more for-
tunate individuals, and through the latter upon the whole commonwealth.
In greater conflagrations insurance companies have indeed paid their losses
with their capital, sometimes to its utter extinction, or even to an assess-
ment upon their stockholders to. meet honorably their obligations, but such
abnormal conditions, if long continued, would make the business of under-
writing impossible. Insurance capital is merely a reservoir from which
flows immediate relief for the victim of fire, who because of this reservoir
need not wait to recoup his misfortune, but this reservoir must be refilled and
kept full, if sure relief is to flow to succeeding sufferers.

Although we, as fire protection engineers, are directly engaged in the
business of underwriting and have a much larger aim and outlook than the
mere necessary conservation of insurance capital, it is yet clearer that if we
can educate the public to see its direct financial interest in the reduction of
the fire waste we shall have enlisted for the promotion of our worthy object
the most powerful motor in our present civilization. By exhibiting, com-
paratively, the fire hazards existing in different cities, and pointing out dif-
ferences in precaution taken for fire protection, the less prudent communities
can be objectively and convincingly shown why business in their precincts
is not sought by the underwriters at low rates.

In any final analysis of our problem, however, it is the individual mem-
ber of the community with whom we must popularize our knowledge of
fire prevention, and expediency directs our efforts first to the man who is now
building expensive structures or structures calculated to contain large values.
To such men we have to offer, without thought of compensation, standards
of building and equipment which may reflect upon them a substantial financial
benefit. The man who builds a factory with thought of the conveniences
of its process merely, and without direct consideration of fire hazard, may, by
ignoring certain recognized structural or other safeguards, unwittingly be put-
ting upon his building and its contents a fixed charge for insurance which shall
operate as a constant tax as long as the building stands. There is a social
as well as an individual responsibility upon the builder of every plant
in which other human beings are to labor, and in our modern city no
man can live unto himself alone; a hazard to himself is a hazard to
his neighbor. No one should undertake the housing of large values, either
human or commercial, without thought to the three cardinal ideas of fire
prevention and control: the incombustible or slow-burning structure, fire-
stops, and fire-extinguishment. The disappearance of our forests and the
corresponding increase in the use of steel, terra cotta, and reinforced con-
crete have interested the popular mind in the first of these ideas. "Fireproof"
structures, especially for hotels, schools, and other public buildings, are com-

10 FIRE PREVENTION

ing to be vaguely understood and desired. But fire-stops and fire-extin-
guishment— these have not yet appeared above the horizon of the common
mind. To ask the modern city to purchase and pull down enough of its
old rookeries to afford occasional broad streets as stops to possible conflagra-
tions is a good deal like asking for the moon; and yet half of a city might
be saved by such a pathway in enabling firemen to confine fire to the sec-
tion in which it may originate. What cities may obtain by open spaces, the
factory may obtain by fire walls which divide it also into sections to which
fire may be confined. While, however, such fire walls, if carried well above
roofs and equipped at their openings with standard fire doors, are a good
general factory precaution and seldom fail to hold fires in check, there are
certain factories in which fire-stops should be thrown around all hazardous
processes. We now have sufficient statistics on almost every well-known
manufacturing process to indicate just what elements in such process are
especially susceptible to fire. Bulwarked by this knowledge, it ought not to
be difficult to induce the manufacturer to segregate from the principal values
of the factory all special processes demonstrated by experience to be especially
hazardous. This does not mean that such processes must be carried on in
separate buildings at the cost of traveling time and inconvenience. The
problem of segregation can now be met without shifting the process out of
its logical place in the routine of manufacture. In a fireproof factory only
a separate room, or at best a separate floor, is needed. The manufacturer
who once, when he had a fire in some room where volatile oils, for example,
were used, commonly lost half his plant, or at any rate so drenched his premises
with water as to have to make a fortnight's suspension necessary, can now,
if he likes, so dispose that hazard as to have a fire every other day without
disturbing the other parts of the factory. The modern fireproof room equipped
with automatic sprinklers, having a slightly pitched floor and scuppers at
the walls, can be flooded for fire extinguishment without a drop coming through
below. The water runs as harmlessly from it as from the deck of a chip.
If we can get, in addition to such consideration as this, enclosed stairways
and elevators and belt shafts, we can be reasonably certain that even a email
fire department will confine every fire to the floor upon which it starts, even
if upon its arrival the automatic sprinklers have left it any fire to fight. The
sprinkler system is now so well known and its value is so commonly recognized
that few manufacturers remain to be convinced of its virtues. Where the
sprinkler system fails it will in almost every case be found to have been neg-
lected previous to the fire. With a fireproof structure, segregated hazards,
standard fire-stops, and a proper sprinkler system, we might well breathe
more freely respecting factories and turn our attention to our friends the
merchants.

In mercantile risks, although many in the larger cities of the country
are equipped with fire-stops, the conditions in most of our smaller towns and
cities are but invitations to conflagrations. The principal mercantile values
are, in cities of the smaller class, usually massed together within the radius
of less than half a mile. I have explored many a double row of brick stores,
divided by a sixteen-foot alley, and have found in almost every one
piles of goods stacked against the rear windows, scarcely a workable fire-
shutter in sight and not a metal window frame in the city. Many watched

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 11

the fire go through brick walls last year in Chelsea, Mass. The wooden
frames of the windows would ignite, the glass would crack and fall out
and each story of those brick buildings became a horizontal flue, filled
with burnable material. Every brick building should be in itself a fire-stop.
If every mercantile risk were equipped with standard metal window frames
with wired glass, a conflagration could hardly get started in the center of
our cities. Such a window not only keeps out fire, but it keeps fire in — so it
may be extinguished in the building in which it starts. There is not a city in
the country, including even Boston and New York, in which conditions are
not ripe for a conflagration. In the smaller cities especially, conflagrations
are sooner or later inevitable. They await only the conjunction of a fire
in the right quarter and a windy night. Here then is a field for our immediate
agitation — the reduction of the conflagration hazard of the entire country
by the easy conversion of every brick, stone or concrete building into a fire-
•stop. This is popularizing science simply by laying upon it the finger of
common sense. In the same category, the category of common sense, fall
the matters of the storage of inflammable oils and explosives, the wiring for
electric light and power, and the construction of flues and the building of
those fire-boxes for homes in which open spaces back of walls enable a fire
to be located in the basement by the flames breaking through the roof.

Indeed it may be that the major portion of our effort lies wholly within
the domain of common sense and following effective agitation the people
themselves may initiate the desired corrections, appealing to our fraternity
only for special service. It is certain that there is growing in American com-
munities a feeling that every individual is responsible to the collective life.
"Civic consciousness" as a phrase is set over against that much over-praised
individuality which is so close to anarchy. If civic consciousness means
anything at all it means a united effort for the general good and a united
recognition of common danger. No one who has witnessed a conflagration
or has been the victim of one will maintain that a common effort to eliminate
the hazards of such a calamity has not the first vital place. Where there
is no law to restrain the careless and irresponsible, such a law should be enacted;
and where laws are ineffective or obsolete such laws should be rewritten.
Public recognition should be demanded for the fact, so hard to impress upon
growing communities, that increased fire protection and a more efficient
fire department are imperative when a city has doubled its size. The state
as well as the city should meet its proper responsibility, and by means of a
fire marshal's office and a vigorous inquiry into fire causes, stamp out the
vicious incendiarism which it seems now so hard to convict.

It behooves us, then, as fire prevention engineers, while never neglect-
ing those scientific developments and betterments which give to our pro-
fession its special social value and dignity, to keep our fingers constantly
upon the pulse of the common life; to stimulate, where they already exist,
those influences which make for the common welfare and safety; and where
they do not exist, to create them. This is our double function, to know and
to lead others to know, how the cosmic element of fire may be harnessed to
the service of the race without smiting it with horror and destruction. In-
dividually in a civilization so complex, we may perhaps do but little, but
as a fraternity, as soldiers of the common good, we may inspire a thousand

12 FIRE PREVENTION

monuments of better building that from sea to sea shall stand as a testimony
to our service, as proof of our manhood in our day and generation.

PRESENT BUILDING CONDITIONS IN AMERICAN CITIES

Large Proportion of Poor Buildings. We have noted that but
one out of every 1,500 of our buildings is at all fire-resisting. Nine-
tenths of the others are wooden frame buildings — wooden walls, roofs,
joists, partitions, finish — wood everything. Besides being of well-
seasoned and dried wood, all that timber is painted, oiled, varnished,
which makes it burn quicker, and, furthermore, it is arranged
with such air spaces, continuous flues between floor joists and be-
tween studding, as to insure the easiest and most rapid transit of
fire from cellar to attic. The other tenth of our buildings have
a shell of good material encasing them, outer walls of brick and
stone, and slate or metal roofs, but those walls and roofs are con-
veniently pierced with door-ways, windows, and skylights, pro-
tected only with wooden doors or glass sash, easy egresses and in-
gresses for fire. It is fondly hoped, of course, that fire will spend
its attack on those resisting walls and not go through the feeble
defense offered by those apertures', that half the time are left in-
vitingly open. Further than that shell, nothing is done to prevent
or minimize fire. In all of those buildings there is the same kind
of wooden joists, wooden partitions, paint, and all; or, perhaps,
the columns and beams are of semi-fireproof metal, which will
not burn, of course, but being unprotected, will so twist and buckle
in fire as to do as much damage as if they were really wood and
did burn up.

These good buildings, with their conveniently pierced unburn-
able shells, may not be consumed as quickly as the entire wooden
buildings, but they assure the spread of fire into conflagration pro-
portions just as successfully as do the wooden ones.

Major Sewell, an army engineer who has given a great deal
of study to fire, aptly puts it thus :

The glaring faults of commercial districts in American cities is the
general weakness of individual buildings, and of districts as a whole, against
an attack in force from the outside, which in this case means a developed con-
flagration. The Committee of Twenty, in discussing the conflagration hazard,
soon began to differentiate between the "probability hazard" and the "poten-
tial hazard," the first referring to the probability of a fire getting beyond
control and out of the building in which it started, thus becoming a conflagra-

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 13

tion, and the second to the strength it would develop in sweeping a district;
in this is involved the amount of food the fire would find in its path, as well
as the facility of ignition and transmission to neighboring buildings.

In the writer's judgment there is not, in a single American city that
he has visited, any district of appreciable extent that would by its own pas-
sive resistance either stop, or appreciably retard, a well-developed confla-
gration. It is just possible that a conflagration of limited front might be
delivered against the mass of so-called fireproof buildings in the financial
districts of Manhattan, and not get through, but even this apparently well-
fortified position could easily be flanked out, and it probably would be by
any conflagration likely to attack it; and the conflagration hazard in Manhat-
tan is almost bad enough to be called an impending disaster.

The essence of the whole question of resistance to conflagration is the
protection of necessary openings and the elimination of all that are not neces-
sary. All openings should be protected, whether on principal fronts or not,
unless they a«re separated from all dangerous neighbors by wider spaces than
any of the streets in any commercial district in the United States. In the
completion and trimming of exposed openings, nothing but incombustible
material should be used and it should be so applied as to resist fire for an
appreciable time. The entire exterior of a building should afford no food for
a fire, and so far as possible should resist its access to the contents within,
whether in the form of radiant heat or otherwise. Any degree of resistance
is better than none, and the possibilities of an effective active defense behind
protected or partly-protected openings was well illustrated in the several cases
at San Francisco.

Good Buildings "Skimped." Even the one building in 1,500 is
only partially fireproof, for generally something has been left un-
done or neglected that will vitiate what has been done well; so
that a fire in the neighborhood or inside the building could dam-
age the structural part anywhere from 10 per cent to 85 per cent of
its full value.

Like a chain a building is only as strong — from the fire pre-
vention point of view — as its weakest link. And our architects
and engineers have, alas, heedlessly, thoughtlessly, or ignorantly sup-
plied not one, but several weak links in our most expensive buildings.

Think of it! Had just one thing been done more than was
done in San Francisco, in its big buildings, before the fire, if they
had protected the windows of those skyscrapers with wire-glass
or with effective shutters, an additional cost of perhaps $60,000
for all those buildings, their contents and fittings would certainly
have been saved, a salvage of at least $10,000,000. Just a while
ago there was a big fire in New York, which did a damage of
$2,000,000. That fire was made possible because they had "saved"

14 FIRE PREVENTION

$4,000 in cutting down on the fireproofing of a $300,000 building!

There really is but one absolutely perfect building in the
country, the National Board of Underwriters' Laboratory at Chi-
cago. It was built to show how a fireproof building should be
built and in it are made the fire and other tests of building ma-
terials, appliances, etc. The hottest fire you could build about it or
in it wouldn't do $100 worth of damage. Its' walls are of brick,
it has protected windows, its structure is of steel and hollow fire-
proofing tile blocks, there is not a particle of wood about it and
the materials used that could be damaged by fire, steel for instance
are amply protected with material that is undamageable. And the
extraordinary thing about it all is that it cost initially but 10 per cent
more than if it had been built the usual way, wooden joists, etc.

There are a number of almost as perfect buildings, some of the
great office structures of New York and of Chicago and some ware-
houses, but in all of them there is apt to be some one or more
flaws, imperfections — and in every case it would have been as easy
and inexpensive to do the thing right as it was to do it wrong —
something that makes it possible for fire to do more damage to
(though it could not destroy) these buildings than it ever could to
the Laboratory in question.

Comparison of Conditions Here and in Europe. We suffer
more by fire than any other nation on earth, for we have so few
perfect or even good buildings; and yet we know more about
fireproof construction than any other people, and have made greater
advances in devising systems and in perfecting materials. In Eu-
rope they have no building that is anywhere as thoroughly well
built, or fire-resisting, as the Singer Tower, or any one of a dozen
skyscrapers in New York or Chicago. But here the general char-
acter of the ordinary buildings is so poor, so ^fire-inviting, that
when you build one that is to be "fireproof" it has to be super-
latively so to resist the intense heat and terrific blaze of a neighbor-
ing fire that is well-nigh beyond control. In Europe all the build-
ings are more fire-resisting, there is less wood used, greater care
exercised to prevent fire; therefore the average fire is of sttch low
intensity and so slow that it is easily handled in consequence. No
building need be so very excellent, and none is, but the general
average is better than ours.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 15

The proportion of our "fireproof" buildings may best be shown
by a specific example. Chicago is really the home of fireproof con-
struction; it was first done there and probably more advances in the
art have been originated there than in all the rest of the country
together. Yet in its downtown district, its densest business sec-
tion, that bounded by the Lake, the Chicago River, South Branch,
and by Harrison Street, 90 blocks, there are 1,863 buildings, large
and small, or an average of about 20 per square. Many of these
buildings, too, are huge affairs, covering a quarter or half a square.
They also average 7 stories in height with the maximum in the
twenties, and an approximate valuation of the property is $270,-
000,000 or about 13,000,000 per block. Of all those buildings there
are but 105 in which some attempt has been made at fireproof con-
struction, and some very feeble attempts, too, though, of course, some
of the best buildings in the world are among those 105. The dis-
trict is known and referred to in fire-reports, insurance bulletins,
etc., as the "fireproof section/' Less than 6 per cent of its buildings
have the slightest claim to that term ! In that district the expec-
tation and average is 50 fires per year per 1,000 buildings. Think
of the danger the good buildings are constantly exposed to!

In New York the conditions are parallel. Just in one district,
the "drygoods district," there are goods to the value of $500,000,000
stored in buildings, scarcely 6 per cent of which are even moderately
fire-resisting.

VALUE OF FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Instances are so numerous of destructive fires in supposedly
fireproof buildings that many persons have absorbed the idea that
there is no such thing as a building that will not burn. This error
is entirely due to confusion in the use of terms and a misstatement
of facts.

A building that is of non-combustible materials is not fireproof.
A building that is of fireproof materials, but not of fireproof design,
is not fireproof. A building that is not of fireproof construction and
design except in part, is not fireproof. A building that is strictly,
thoroughly fireproof, yet filled with combustible contents, may have
a destructive fire in it, but the building itself will not be wrecked
or destroyed. Experience has demonstrated again and again that

16 FIRE PREVENTION .

if a building is of strictly fireproof materials — is correctly de-
signed— only a small proportion of the contents can be destroyed
by fire.

Importance of Good Design. The following illustrates the
importance of the designing of a fireproof building:

The city of Philadelphia put up a half-million dollar high-school
building which was of thoroughly fireproof construction clear to the
roof. This splendid structure was then covered with a highly com-
bustible roof and, to cap the absurdity, a tower was run up above the
roof and this tower was built entirely of wood. A fire started in the
tower, destroying it and the roof, damaging in part the two upper
floors of the building and causing incalculable loss in the destruction
of scientific records and a heavy loss in valuable astronomical instru-
ments. And people of the city from the mayor down were asking
how could such a disastrous fire occur in a fireproof building.

Lincoln said: "This nation cannot exist half slave and half
free". A building will not exist that is half fireproof and half com-
bustible construction. A truly fireproof building is one that is of
thoroughly fireproof construction, non-combustible finish, and of
correct design, so that a fire starting in any part of the building will
be confined to the starting point, thus saving not only the building
but the major portion of the contents. The correctness of this kind
of construction is being constantly proved by the fires which start in
fireproof buildings and, being confined to small area, are easily ex-
tinguished and cause such slight damage that they create no attention.
The world never hears of them.

Fireproofing as an Investment. There are just two things that
produce wealth, those two things are land and labor. You must have
land on which to erect your buildings; you must have labor to find or
produce the materials and put them in place. If you use the building
to live in as a home or give it away as a home to others (as a means of
gratifying your sense of philanthropy), then the building represents
wealth to you, because it is used to gratify desire. If you use it to
rent to others or to conduct your business in, or in any way to make
money, from its use, it represents capital, because it is wealth used to
produce more wealth.

In every investment the first consideration is that of safety for
the amount invested. The next question is the amount which can

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 17

be earned en the investment. Then comes the element of certainty
that the earning will be continuous. Right here, in these first prin-
ciples of investment, is where investors in buildings make their
greatest mistakes. As to the land, the investment is safe — it cannot
burn, be blown away, be destroyed by flood, be injured by wear and
tear or fall to pieces from old age; nor does it require repairs.

The investment in buildings is subject to all these hazards;
chiefly to the danger of fire, certainly to loss from repairs. "Hazard,"
"danger," "loss," are ominous words when we talk of investments.
They smack of speculation. And the man who puts his money into
the average building today is simply a speculator. He takes long
chances in the hope of greater gain. The first and prime danger he
faces is the destruction of his investment by fire. This is the great
practical hazard which every building owner most fears. Under
modern methods of building construction this danger can be elim-
inated. No building owner need assume the hazard unless he
chooses to do so. He can have a building which is absolutely proof
against destruction by fire, or he can take the other alternative and
speculate (with the insurance company as a partner) on the building's
eventual loss. This responsibility rests upon the investor himself.
He cannot shift or evade it. He cannot put the burden upon his
architect, upon his contractor, or upon the fire insurance companies.
The architect and contractor will do what they are told to do and
are paid for. The insurance company .will simply become a partner
in the gamble as to the destruction of the building; and, win or lose,
the insurance company must be paid its charges.

The architect and contractor who serve their clients' interest
will advise fireproof construction, but they cannct command it. The
insurance company has no choice. If the investor chooses to spec-
ulate he pays a speculative premium. For the greater risk he puts up
a higher margin. It is his money, his investment, his responsibility.
The investor can make no half-way choice; his building must either
be safe or a risk. He can speculate or he can invest. If he chooses a
safe building he must know for himself that it is safe; he must study
and inform himself, so that if he says, "I want an absolutely fire-
proof building" he will know whether he gets it or not. If he does
not know he can blame no one but himself, for his ignorance, for
channels of correct information are open to him everywhere.

FIRE PREVENTION

It is a curious fact that a man who will investigate for months
before investing in a piece of land will put twice as much money into a
building without any attempt to secure knowledge about the structure,
except to know that it gratifies his ideas of convenience and appear-
ance. His first requisite in every other kind of investment, security,
he utterly ignores when he puts his money into a building. Now
let us see what a little thought on the subject would do toward solving
the problem as to whether the investor or the speculator eventually
makes the most money. Let us assume a case such as occurs hundreds
of times a year.

Fig. 1. A Warehouse Fire
Nearly a hundred of these burned in a day is the record

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones are competitors in business in the same
town. Each decides he needs a new building. Each goes to the same
architect and tells him to make plans for a building of a given size.
The architect, after some figuring, tells bcth of them that he can plan
a building of ordinary construction for $100,000 or a fireproof build-
ing for $110,000. This 10 per cent difference in cost between a safe
building and an ordinary building is the average difference. Mr.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Smith says he does not need a fireproof building — that he will carry
insurance to the full value of the building — that fire is only a chance
anyhow and he will save his $10,000 and take the chance. Mr. Jones
says he will invest the additional $10,000 to secure a first-class build-
ing that will endure — that even if he carried a full insurance he

Fig. 2. A Wire and Plaster "Protection" to Steel Work

might burn out anyhow and the loss of business on account of the fire
would be so serious that he prefers to take no risks. On this basis
the buildings are finished and occupied. At the end of five years the
two owners compare notes. Neither has had a fire but Smith's building
is deteriorating — costs a little more each year to keep in repair, and

20 FIRE PREVENTION

he has spent for repairs so far $2,000. He has paid out for insurance
a rate of $1.50 on full value, or $7,500 for the five years. Jones has
spent about $500 for repairs and his building is as good as the day it
was finished, simply because it has been built of indestructible, vermin-
proof material. He has carried $20,000 insurance to be safe under
the 80 per cent insurance clause and his rate has been $1.00. Total
insurance premiums $1,000. In five years Smith's investment is
$109,500 against Jones' total cf $112,500. In one year more Smith's
building will have cost him as much as Jones' and Jones will have
had and continue to have a better, sounder, safer building, while Smith's
building may be completely gutted by fire any day with all the conse-
quent loss cf business and profits. In any event it is deteriorating
at an ever-increasing rate, while the deteriorating of Jones' build-
ing is negligible. Mr. Smith as a speculator takes all the chance,
yet in the long run, even if he has had no fire, he makes less money
on his capital, and less and less each succeeding year.

Insurance vs. Fireproof Construction. Reverting to the insur-
ance phase of the matter in its direct bearing upon fireproof con-
struction, let us sift the thing out a bit further. Fire insurance in
this country, whether designated mutual or not, is simply the work-
ing of a mutual interest; it is exactly similar to the strike benefit fund
of the labor union. Among the labor unions a million men get
together in a federation composed of one hundred local unions of
ten thousand members each and agree to pay into a general fund,
called the strike benefit fund, certain assessments, premiums, or dues,
from each man's wages, this fund to be used to insure the members
of a local union and their families against 'starvation in the case of
a strike.

In the case of fire insurance the difference exists only in the
method of organization and its principles. A federation of fire
insurance companies is formed, and a million owners of buildings
say, "We will pay into this federation a certain percentage of the
value of our buildings, and when any one among our million members
has his property destroyed by fire, he will be reimbursed from our
general fund."

One might very properly question, however, whether this is the
best fire insurance that has been or can be devised. It readily appears
that insurance does not prevent fires; on the contrary, the tendency

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 21

would be to increase them, because a man feels less responsible when
he is insured, just as a labor union is always more willing to srtike
when it knows that its strike benefits are on hand. There are few
things .that will prevent fires and those only in a measure, viz, con-
stant vigilance and the exercise of great precaution. There is only one
thing that will prevent a fire from doing great damage after it has
started and that is fireproof construction of the building. The func-

Fig. 3. Wooden Sash in Tile Partitions
This construction permits fire to travel from room to room

tion of fireproof construction is to hold a fire in the spot in which
it starts, to prevent its spreading, and to protect the structural
parts of the building from destruction.

The element of vigilance is presupposed in any kind of building.
Witness the employment of night-watchmen, the introduction of
adequate water supply, of sprinkler systems, of rules and regulations
for the handling of combustible goods and rubbish, and for the
management of engine rooms, heating apparatus, etc.

The question, therefore, is: Is it better insurance to occupy

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 4. Well Applied and Properly Made Fireproofing
This protects the structural parts of a building from fire's worst attacks

Fig. 5. Well Applied Fireproofing Protection Always Protects the Structural Parts

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 23

a building of ordinary construction and depend, in case of fire, on
reimbursement from the federation fund, in the meantime paying
out heavy premiums on nearly full valuation of the property; or to
build in the beginning a structure that will not burn and that will
limit the damage due to any fire started in it to a nominal loss,
making it necessary to carry only a nominal insurance in the federa-
tion?

In the first instance the property owner has a smaller investment
in the property to start with, but he keeps adding to his original
investment with the premiums which he is constantly paying out.

On the other hand, if he builds a fireproof building his initial
investment is greater by about 10 per cent, but it can be conclu-
sively proved that in the course of a few years this additional invest-
ment is returned to him, for his building represents practically as
valuable an asset as it did when first constructed. Therefore, fire-
proof construction is the best fire insurance. The insurance com-
panies reluctantly say so and they back up the statement by some
(inadequate) rebates in rates for thoroughly fireproof construction.

How does the fire loss really affect the owner of a building?
In other words, what does insurance insure?

A man, or a company of men, who have a business building
erected, do so because, first, a building is wanted in which to conduct
business; second, it is put up to rent to others as an investment.
In any case the danger of loss by fire is recognized and the owner
figures that by covering his property fully with good insurance, he
will recover his losses in full should his building burn. But will
he? Suppose John Smith and Co., clothing manufacturers, put up
a building costing $100,000. They insure it for full value at a rate
of one dollar and fifty cents per hundred dollars, put their stock and
equipment in, and begin to do business. At the end of three years
the building and contents are totally destroyed by fire. The build-
ing has now cost them, with the insurance premiums added, $104,500.
Assume that they are fortunate enough to get back the full amount of
insurance, $100,000. They do not get the premiums back. That is
a loss of $4,500. Three to six months' time is lost in erecting a new
building, getting new equipment and new stock, and orders they
had on hand unfilled are cancelled on account of delay. A loss of
business of, say $100,000, and a loss of profits of $10,000. Stock on

FIRE PREVENTION

hand which had been bought at particularly advantageous prices
has been destroyed and the old prices cannot be duplicated — further
loss of profits of $2,000. Through loss of records of orders and the
records of items in dispute, which make it impossible to prove
ledger accounts, a loss of another $1,000 occurs. The rent of

Fig. 6. Fire's Tendency to Expose and Distort the Reinforcement in Re-
inforced Concrete Work
This means total loss of the floor or column or wall

quarters in which to do business while the burned building is being
rebuilt, costs, say $3,000 more. Moving stock and equipment into
the new building when completed costs $1,000. Loss due to old
customers getting away and making other buying connections cannot

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 25

be even guessed at, but it must be a very considerable item. As a
direct result, then, of the fire, there are known losses amounting to
$21,500 which insurance does not and cannot cover, besides other
losses which cannot be known or computed. And this is but one of
a hundred actual, specific, record cases; in the case of a fire where
the destruction is not total, these auxiliary losses will still be just as
great in proportion to the damage done. So much for the losses in a
building^rected in which to conduct business. Now take the case of
a buildjfrg erected as an investment and rented to others. Assume
the cost'pf the building to be the same as the one cited above, same
character of building, insurance premiums the same. Annual rental
of the building $8,000 or more. The owner loses at least one year's
rental and his insurance premiums make the total loss $12,500,
assuming that the fire occurs three years after the building was
erected. In every case, of course, the longer the building stands,
the greater is the amount paid out in insurance, to say nothing about
the cost in repairs. Should a fire not occur for ten years the owner
has paid out in insurance premiums $15,000. Now the moral of
all this is, that the owner should consider all these questions when
he is deciding the point as to whether his building shall be built of
fireproof or ordinary construction.

Fallacious Arguments Against Fircproofing. Plausible argu-
ments can be advanced against the bettering of conditions. A journal
devoted largely to the lumbering- interests in a recent editorial,
gives one of the best examples of modern sophistry that has ever
come under my observation. It says, summing up its argument
against a general improvement in building conditions and the
lessening of fire risks:

Our social system is adjusted so as to distribute the burden of the vast
loss indirectly upon the public at large, and more than this, it not only expects
to meet these annual losses, but it would be a very serious matter if these did
not occur for a series of years. . . . The first year in which no fire occurred
would cause general jubilation, fire companies would welcome. the rest and
stockholders in insurance companies would be happy in increased dividends.

Later, mechanics and business men would wonder why times were
getting so hard. . . . And still later there would be a widespread out-
break of incendiary fires as the first step toward restoring the building indus-
tries to their normal condition. It is fortunate, therefore, that the progress
in replacing combustible with incombustible building is, and must be, slow!

26 FIRE PREVENTION

Comment is hardly necessary, though one little illustration may
be of service to those weak enough to be impressed by such an attempt
to mislead as the above. I have in mind a man who two years ago
built himself a house costing $6,000. He had been moderately
prosperous and was thinking of building a more expensive home, and

Fig. 7. Sometimes Reinforced Concrete Gives a Poor Account of Itself in a Fire

had already placed his present house on the market, and with reason
expected to make a few dollars out of it on account of the increase
in the value of the property. The house burned down. It was a
total loss. He also lost all his furniture, some curios of considerable
value, and much wearing apparel, etc. Like most men, he was but
"safely" insured, and lost considerable by the fire, besides the ex-
pected profit on his sale. He is a man who will not rent a house,
so he is boarding while building another home upon which he does

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 27

not feel justified in spending a penny more than he did on 'the first,
in view of the losses he has suffered. By reason of the fire our
sophisticated editor deems it necessary to keep builders going,
the latter having lost the prospective two or three thousand dollars
they would have made in the due process of change and betterment
ever going on in the world, had my friend net burned out. Inciden-
tally, whilst upon the subject of houses, it may be well to add that it
requires just about 100,000 new houses a year to supply our regular
increase in population — not taking into account those that are built
to replace burnt ones or to supply the desire for better accommoda-
tions.

Fireproofing Real Economy. From the pecuniary viewpoint
fireproof construction, I contend, is a real economy. Eliminating
the question of insurance altogether, the depreciation on an ordinarily
constructed building, office, store, or other business house amounts
to at least 1J per cent a year; that is, apart from the cost of
refurnishing and maintaining the building in presentable appear-
ance, the materials used in its construction are decreasing in struc-
tural value to that extent. In houses used for dwelling purposes,
apartments, etc., the rate is even greater, amounting to as much as
3 per cent. These figures represent the average of all the materials
incorporated in the building; the depreciation of the essentially struc-
tural parts of timber is even greater, being nearly 4 per cent per
year. On the other hand the average lessening of value of fire-
proof structure as a whole is a scant ^ of 1 per cent, and
the depreciation of the structural parts, when, once properly built,
is virtually nil. The constant shrinking and "movement" of wood
framing necessitates frequent repair of exterior and interior finish,
papering, painting, plastering, etc., even when those parts of the
work would otherwise be perfectly presentable — undamaged by mere
age; in a properly built fireproof building such things as shrinkage
and movement do not occur. In ordinary buildings vermin — a thing
few people figure upon — cause not only quite an additional expense,
but actually a certain amount of damage to the building and its
contents. The renting value of a vermin-infested house, flat, or store,
is soon appreciably decreased. The cost of fighting these pests of
various kinds is a tax and it may perhaps be surprising that, taking
a dozen apartment houses, here in Washington for example, the

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 8. What was Left of One of San Francisco's Reinforced Concrete Buildings After the Fire
.Note the unburaed wood in the debris

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 29

average cost of fighting vermin amounts to —•$ of 1 per cent of the
cost of the buildings, per annum.

Fireproofing a building eliminates this feature. Figure up
these comparisons and then note that a thoroughly fireproof build-
ing, in its first cost, will rarely exceed the outlay for ordinary
constructon by more than 10 per cent. In stores and warehouses
this difference is reduced to 5 and 6 per cent, while in some locali-
ties, I have found that there is barely an appreciable difference in
cost between fireproof and non-fireproof construction. In at least
three recent cases, to my certain knowledge, bids taken on both
styles of construction have developed an actually lower figure for
fireproof construction than for wood.

NOTE. Of course, there is always an element of chance in taking bids
and there is wide room for such differences, a fact which will be realized when
I say that on a building that actually cost $200,000, for instance, and with
all contractors figuring on the same basis, there will frequently be as much as
$80,000 difference between the highest and the lowest bids.

Thirty years ago, when steel and tile were first used in con-
struction, and when wood was cheap, the cost of fireproof construc-
tion was prohibitive except in special cases. People were so in-
formed, and they still hold that idea, and I am afraid that it
is going to take some years, and many more fires, and other hard
lessons to get this idea out of their heads. They would like their
buildings to be fireproof, well enough, especially after a big fire,
but the wish dies a painful, though not a very lingering, death under
the influence of the idea that it is going to cost them so much more
money. A conflagration is but a chance after all, and the cost of
fireproofing, they think, is a certainty, hence their, deduction that
it is not sound business to balance a certainty of cost against a
purely problematical advantage.

Ignorance Retards Spread of Fireproof Methods. It is rather dis-
tressing that in the very places that have been most recently singed,
the rebuilding is Jargely upon the old lines of tinder-box construc-
tion. One reason is that people do not know any better and the next
is that those who ought to keep them posted fail in their task. I have
a report of one city, an enterprising city of the Middle West, where
2,677 permits were taken out last year, involving an outlay of
$6,600,000, and where there were but three fireproof buildings erected

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 9. Fire's Effect Upon a Building of Cast-Iron Columns, Steel Girders, Concrete Beams and

Concrete Slab Floors

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

during that period. Incidentally, the fire losses amounted to over
$1,000,000. In another city $15,400,000 was put into 2,002 buildings,
of which number 4 (!) were fireproof. In still another city where

Hi in in

111111881

eii ill ill

11*1*

Fig. 10. The Almost Completed Chronicle Building in the San Francisco Fire
Nothing in it to burn but a little scaffolding so that it was virtually uninjured

4,666 permits were taken out for buildings involving nearly $8,000,000,
but 22 buildings, mostly small ones at that, were fireproof, and the
fire loss was $1,500,000,

32 FIRE PREVENTION

I blame the newspapers very largely for the apathy of the people
upon this subject. If a dog goes mad and bites a man or two the
newspapers clamor for more ample police protection, the proper
licensing of canines, if not their elimination from civic privileges,
and a host of other cures and redressive measures without end;
after a terrible railroad wreck the same papers clamor for the abolition
of grade crossings, the providing of more perfect block systems, etc.,
but after a great fire they simply clamor for greater water pressure,
a larger fire department with better apparatus, feeling about, as it
were, for some sort of palliative, or at best a little salve to soothe the
wound, rather than striking at the root of the evil and eradicating it
by advocating a preventive. We have been able, by using drastic
methods, to thoroughly stamp out smallpox, yellow fever, and many of
those things which seemed a few years ago to be the necessary accom-
paniments of life in certain districts. This was not done, however,
by curing the patients so afflicted, but by wiping out the cause,
thus preventing people from contracting the loathsome diseases. If,
now, the newspapers of the country would set themselves just as ener-
getically to the task of advocating fireproof construction and per-
fected fire-fighting appliances, insisting upon the proper legislative
enactments, it would be but a question of months when popular
opinion, so directed and educated, would place insurmountable
obstacles in the way of the speculative builders of fire traps, and
there would be evolved some method of eliminating the danger,
which lies in existing buildings, of antiquated construction.

WHAT IS FIREFPROOF BUILDING?

"Fireproof building" is a much misunderstood term.

Buildings are constructed for certain specific purposes. No
matter what kind of building may be under consideration, it is built
for one of the following reasons:

1. The protection of persons from the elements.

2. The protection of property from the elements.

From these two basic principles follow all the multitude of
variations in buildings, variations of arrangement which provide for
the comfort and convenience of persons sheltered by the buildings,,
and for the convenient use of property stored in the buildings.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION! 33

The dwelling, apartment house, hotel, hospital, theater, etc.,
are primarily for the protection and comfort of human inmates;
secondarily for ministration to their convenience, pleasures, and
ethical conditions of life, which are provided for by the installation
in the building of suitable property, that is to say, the building's
arrangements and its contents. The warehouse, museum, store
building, etc., are designed chiefly for protection to property and
the use of property.

The destructive elements of nature against which all buildings
must provide are wind, water, and fire. Human skill solved the
problems of protection against wind and water centuries ago, in a
more or less practical manner; of course, improvement has con-
stantly increased the efficiency of originally cruder methods.

It has remained for modern science to solve the difficulty of pro-
tection against fire, particularly under the congested conditions oi
life today, and it is this evolution which has led up to the creation
of what is known as the modern fireproof building.

Popular Misconceptions. N oncombustible Material. The chief
misunderstanding that occurs in regard to the term "fireproof" as
applied to buildings, is largely due to the fact that most people
consider as "fireproof" (not subject to. destruction by fire) materials
which are simply noncombustible. In other words, many people
think that a material which will not blaze is a fireproof material,
overlooking the fact that the destructive element of fire is not alone
in the blaze, but in the heat.

Unprotected Iron and steel. Another misconception is due to
the failure to distinguish between the parts of the building which
are fireproof, and the parts which are not fireproof. Half a century
ago there was a great wave of building activity in the use of a
construction of unprotected cast iron, this material being then con-
sidered a fireproof material. Iron will soften under a comparatively
low volume of heat, and in this softened condition will collapse cf
its own weight. How much more disastrously will it be injured
when weighted down with floors and the contents of the building!
It was the collapse of a number of these buildings during fires,
which led to modern fireproof construction.

The same fallacious idea was held regarding unprotected steel,
and these fallacies are still exceedingly strong in the mind of the

FIRE PREVENTION

uninformed person who has given the matter only casual consideration.
All kinds of stone, marble, artificial stone, plaster, cement, and

metals, are considered by the uninformed as fireproof, yet the action
of heat on these will cause them to crack, split, crumble, bend,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

36 FIRE PREVENTION

warp, and disintegrate in varying degrees, in some cases absolutely
ruining their efficiency for building purposes, as has been demon-
strated in actual fires and under tests again and again.

Contents and Finish of Buildings. Under practical conditions
at the present day there is considerable confusion as to fireproof
buildings, on account of the failure to make the distinction between
the building itself and its contents, i. e., the property which it was
built to protect. This confusion can best be illusratted by citing
the fact that if you build a solid masonary vault of brick, or terra cotta
hollow tile, or concrete, fill it with combustible goods, such as books
and papers, or furniture, you will at once perceive that if you set
fire to these contents they will readily be destroyed, while the vault
itself will be entirely unharmed, or but negligibly damaged.

Carrying this illustration further, if you build in one side of
this vault a window with wooden sash and hemp sash cords, fit the
vault inside with a wooden base-board, and cover the bottom of the
vault with a wooden floor, a fire will unquestionably destroy, at
the same time with the contents, the window, the sash and the base-
board and floor, leaving the vault itself intact.

This illustrates the relation between a fireproof building and its
contents and finish. The building structure itself, its columns, beams,
girders, floors, walls and partitions, may be thoroughly fireproof,
and, therefore, similar in efficiency against fire to the masonary vault.
On the other hand the contents of the building, consisting of carpets,
curtains, furniture, books, etc., with all such details as wood finish
in the shape of windows, doors, marble finish in corridors, statuary,
unprotected stair railings of iron and bronze, etc., would be entirely
destroyed. That is to say, all parts of the building which were
made fireproof and which could possibly be claimed to be fireproof
would be intact and undamaged. Everything else in the building
might be destroyed.

Division of Building into Isolated Units. This leads to the
correct method of fireproof building under modern conditions, involv-
ing that great basic principle of protection of buildings against fire,
viz, the principle of complete isolation.

Suppose you wanted to erect a six-story fireproof building,
but instead, having plenty of land upon which to spread out, you
put up six one-story buildings, each separated from the other with

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

thoroughly fireproof walls and partitions. Fill your six buildings
with combustible contents, start a fire in one and let it burn itself

Fig. 13. A Vista of the Chicago Post Office Down One of Chicago's Narrow Streets

out. Your five other buildings will not be endangered, harmed, or
damaged. The contents of the building fired will be destroyed,

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 14. Putting up the Last of the 19,000,000 Pounds of Steel Framing in the Chicago Post Office

This building is one of the very best, if not the best specimen of steel frame and tile

fireproofing in the country

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 39

but the building itself stands intact and with slight repairs is again
ready for occupancy.

Now assemble your six buildings on one site in six unconnected
stories with your floors as well as your partitions fireproof. If a fire
is started in the contents on one floor, the principle of isolation pro-
tects the contents on the other five floors just as it does in the six sep-
arate buildings. Assume that in your six one-story buildings you had
left combustible doors opening from one building into another.
Is it not evident that the fire would have swept from one to the other
and destroyed the contents of all six, no matter how fireproof the
structures themselves were?

Suppose in your six-story building you leave openings of com-
bustible material, combustible doors in partitions of the same floor,
combustible open elevator shafts, machinery shafts, air vents, etc.,
will not the result be the same as in the six single buildings, com-
municating through combustible entrances?

The most highly perfected and most familiar type of the strictly
fireproof building is the commercial and office building seen chiefly
in our larger cities, and commonly called the "skyscraper". These
buildings are simply steel frames, upon the outer columns and girders
of which are carried the outside walls, while on the interior columns
and girders and beams, are carried the floors and roof. The same
material which protects the steel skeleton from the action of fire,
namely the terra cotta hollow tile or brick or concrete in sufficient
mass, is also set between the spans from beam to beam, thus forming
the floors.

In the ideal building, from the standpoint of fire protection,
there would be no openings such as elevator shafts, stairways, sky-
light wells, etc., through these floors. Even if such were the case,
it fe readily to be seen that the steel would be entirely protected with
a material which is absolutely proof against destruction by fire and
which is a non-conductor of heat, thus preventing the heat from
attackin&jthe steel. The building in its entirety would, therefore, not
only be safe against destruction by fire, but if a fire started in the
contents placed on any floor, the floors above and below being also
of this fireproof material would prevent the fire from going through
the building, thus isolating it, limiting it to the floor on which the
fire had its start.

FIRE PREVENTION

Tig. .15.

'ThelFisherlBuilding, Chicago, a Record Breaker in Speed of Steel and Tile Construc-
tion Thirty .day s above .street level

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 41

Necessity for practical use of the building, however, requires
that there be some means of communication and passage from one
floor to the other, which necessitates the cutting of elevator shafts
and stairways. Under the best practice in fireproof buildings these
means of communication are cut off by various methods, the best
of which is an enclosing wall of terra cotta hollow tile or brick
around the elevator shafts and around the stair openings.

The rapid destruction of combustible finish in fireproof build-
ings may be traced to the lack of these precautionary measures in
completely isolating each floor from the others. Elevator shafts,
stair openings, and openings for belt shafts, electric wires, pipes,
etc., are the most common causes of communication of fire from one
part of an otherwise fireproof building, to the connecting part, thus
giving the fire free opportunity to attack the contents of the building
throughout all its floors. Care in the designing of the buildings and
the use of proper safeguards for all the openings, will absolutely
eliminate this feature.

The smaller each open area is, the less damage can be done to
the contents by fire. If the size of each area is limited only by the
size of each story, there is, of course, nothing to prevent the fire
sweeping all through the story on which the fire originates. If the
area of each floor be cut in two by a fireproof partition the possible
damage will, of course, be reduced by half.

After the floors are laid, the area of each floor may be and usually
is — depending on the use and size of the building — cut into smaller
areas by the aid of brick, terra cotta hollow' tile, concrete or metal
lath and plaster, built in the shape of partitions, forming dividing
walls for rooms, offices, hall-ways, etc.

In addition to this ideal type of fireproof construction, there is
an infinite variety of other constructions which depend, of course,
upon the size of the building, the uses to which it is put, the loads
which the floor construction is to carry, and the architectural appear-
ance of the building.

Steel and Tile or Concrete Frame. The first step in fireproof
construction was undoubtedly taken with the invention of the elevator,
which gave a means of rapid communication between stories and
allowed the buildings to run higher than it had been customary to
build. The tall building soon showed the necessity for other con-

FIRE PREVENTION

struction than heavy supporting walls and wood framing, which
necessity coupled with American ingenuity gave us the skeleton
steel frame and the hollow fireproofing tile to encase it. Little by
little the system was perfected and no man ever dreams today of
erecting a high building by the old methods; he uses the steel frame
and tiles or some one of the later substitute systems of reinforced
concrete. Even should he desire to revert to the manners of his

Fig. 16. Fir'eproofing the Great Chicago Court House Building

fathers, the law has progressed enough, in its recognition of its duty
to protect the community, even at the curtailment of what have
been deemed "private rights," to prevent him. The result has been
that where the proper intelligence has been used in assembling the
parts of these structures even the fiercest conflagration has left but
comparatively light scars upon them. People have seen this and
the thoughtful have wondered. Since the vitals, the skeleton of a

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

building, remained uninjured in any such test, why could not the
rest of the building also be rendered immune?

Wire Glass, Metal Doors, and Other Protective Features. Theory
and observation have established a standard for the whole building
in all its parts. It has been decreed that the units of space shall be
comparatively small and that each unit shall be so constructed as to
become virtually a separate building; external openings are to be pro-
tected with wire glass in metallic frames or such sash, automatically

Fig. 17. Showing Concrete Beams and Tile Slabs of Fireproof Roof

closing at a certain temperature and glazed with two thicknesses of
wire glass and having supplementary shutters in particularly exposed
places. The roof has been recognized as a vulnerable point, it formerly
being frequently of wood even in so-called fireproof buildings; today
it must be as substantially built and protected and as incombustible
as any of the floors. It has been demonstrated that wooden doors
and interior finish are frequently the means of communicating fire

FIRE PREVENTION

from one unit of space to the other; all this finish should now be of
some incombustible material. There are metal doors on the market,
there is an asbestos board, and even wood properly plumbagoed and
metal-plated is a strong resistant. Fire after fire has proved that
however stoutly floors may be constructed, if they are riddled full
of holes and well-shafts, fire is going to communicate from one
story to another; and the higher the building, the greater the rate of
speed and the force with which it travels upward — the principle of
the chimney — spreading ruin and devastation in its wake. So
sensible people enclose their stairways and elevator shafts.

Fig 18. This Photograph Shows Unmelted Snow on a Tile Roof After a Three-Hour Fire

in the Story Below

THE "CITY UNBURNABLE" A POSSIBILITY

There is nothing unknown, mysterious, or extraordinary about
the operation of fire. The science of fire prevention, likewise, is not
occult or even wonderfully difficult to learn and apply. With what
we have at hand it is easily possible to erect an absolutely fireproof
structure that will not only resist fire, as far as total annihilation is
concerned, but that cannot be damaged more than 5 or 6 per cent
of its cost value by the fiercest conflagration possible to imagine.
Nor would such a building be prohibitive in initial cost, indeed, not

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 45

be over 6 or 7 per cent more than that of the imperfectly fireproof
building, and in the course of a very few years, by reason of the
lessened insurance premiums or none at all, freedom from repairs,
etc., the cost would be less than that of the other building; ulti-
mately its permanency and absolute immunity from fire would
render the cost of fireproofing an incomparable economy. It is the
only sane thing to do and something that our people will eventually
realize as the easiest and best mode of construction for the home as
well as the factory, church, office, school or state capitol — everything.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the more fireproof the buildings
are built the less absolutely fireproof need they be. Today, as has
been remarked, when we build something we are anxious to render
invulnerable, we have to take extraordinary precautions because of
the conflagration-hazard, the combustibility of so many of the sur-
rounding structures. Imagine a city of absolutely incombustible
construction and you can readily see that none of those buildings
need be as fireproof as we have now to build. There being nothing
to burn, no such extraordinary measures need be taken against fire.
This condition exists very largely in European cities; how strangely
short-sighted we have been, not to recognize such advantages long
ago.

Little by little, yet rapidly when one realizes what obstacles have
been in the way, our municipalities have recognized that the in-
dividual cannot always be depended upon to do the right thing and
even our architects cannot always be depended upon to advise the
right things; they have, therefore, in many places made obligatory
the essentials of good construction, of fire prevention. One by one
preventive legislative acts are enacted and passed, and one by one
fire preventive means are forced upon the attention of the people,
who finally discover that these means are effective and not costly.
All the signs are most hopeful and it is only a question of time —
let us be optimistic and say a little while at that — when it will be
as natural for a man to insist upon every part of his building being
well done as it is now for him to direct that the structural portions
be fireproof. The "City Unburnable" is no idle dream of a visionary
x theorist, but a possibility whose realization is near at hand. (What
do twenty years amount to in the life of a city or a nation?)

Municipal Building Regulations. Hundreds of cities are now

FIRE PREVENTION

fefiUNTON .A RUSSELL ARCHiTECTS

Fig. 19. The Largest Office Building.in the World— The Hudson Terminal, New York City

Well fireproofed but a bad exposure in that it is surrounded by a

miserable lot of fire-traps

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 47

revising their building regulations, writing new ones, or have just
put amended ones into force. This is well, for it shows that the great
fires of the past few years have not been wholly unfruitful lessons.
Perfect building is absolute economy; good construction is sensi-
ble and shoddy construction is positive extravagance — that basic
fact must be remembered in devising regulations. A city full of good
buildings means lessened maintenance cost for each owner, fewer
repairs, a longer life for the buildings — and in consequence lower
rents — much less expense for fire departments and water protection,
the very minimum of insurance rates and premiums, and the maxi-
mum of safety to life and property. It means millions upon millions
of dollars saved and a great municipal problem solved.

It is evident, therefore, that the responsibility rests with our
building departments to fight valiantly for the most stringent build-
ing regulations, for In that way only, lies safety and real progress for
our cities. A first-class city can be an aggregation of only first-
class buildings. Therefore, in the congested districts, at least, only
perfect construction can be tolerated — the complete and total elim-
ination of the combustible in building materials.

Fire Limits. Many people clamor for restricted fire limits;
the building departments should clamor for as wide limits as possible.
That is a wise provision, real conservatism, for it is only a question of
a few years when the existing fire limits of any city must be extended,
thus taking in all the second-class buildings permitted under the old
regulations. These old ones endanger the new buildings, which, as
a consequence, must be superlatively well built to withstand the
adjacent fires that are sure to rage all about them in the old buildings.
We must all realize that with as rapidly growing a population as
ours, the town of today is the city of tomorrow. Every one of our
cities is now suffering from an inheritance of fire-traps handed down
by previous generations. The city that would make its fire limits
comprehend the whde of its corporate area would indeed be a sensible
city, a real first-class city. But it is hardly to be expected that any
one of them would show that much foresight all at once; therefore
it is up to the building departments to get the next best thing by hav-
ing the fire limits — the area of first-class buildings — take in just as
much territory as possible.

Inspection. A building inspector requires courage to make

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Fig. 20. "The New York Times" Tower. A fine type of office building

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 49

a good fight for better construction and enlarged fire limits. He
is opposed always by the builders of cheap houses—the only men
who really profit by tinder-box construction — and these men are
generally pretty strong politically. I know of three cases where pro-
gressive, public-spirited, and capable building inspectors were ousted
from office by the political manipulations of such builders and of
certain real estate dealers who felt that the inspectors were too
'"active" and were hurting their business — that of selling flimsy
houses to workmen. Another inspector was elected upon the ex-
plicit promise not to tamper with the existing building code that
permitted such construction; while still another, having started a
revision of his code, was calmly informed by his mayor that when
his revision was completed and ready for passage his "job" would
be at an end! The man not being a "hero" has protracted that
revision already three years.

Everywhere a strenuous effort is being made by these same
cheap builders to have the building codes revised "downward."
They are the self-constituted defenders of the poor man's rights
and in that capacity clamor for the cheaply built house, the "modest
home of the laborer". That cheap house is not only a menace to
the whole city but is the very dearest and rankest extravagance the
poor man can indulge in. Only the rich can really afford a fire-
trap, for its deterioration and destruction will not affect them ma-
terially, and yet it is the rich who build permanent, fireproof homes,
while the man in ordinary circumstances, with whom every dollar
counts, is the one who invests recklessly in something that any day
may mean a total loss to him — a home that initially costs almost as
much as a well-built one and which is deteriorating at a most rapid
rate.

The following paragraph, which gives the gist of the remarks
of a judge in a recent court decision in Washington, will best
illustrate what that deterioration means:

A man bought a house from a speculative builder, one of these houses
showily painted externally and with nickel plumbing and white tiled bath-
rooms that so allure the home seeker — the well-baited hook offered by Mr.
Wholesale Builder. After living in it three months, the roof began to leak
like a sieve, the foundations, walls, and cellar floors cracked and crumbled
(the concrete was but a little cement daubed over some stone and much dirt),
the plastering cracked, the furnace was insufficient to heat the house, every

FIRE PREVENTION

flue leaked, and the beautiful nickel plumbing failed to work. Feeling de-
frauded and outraged the man sued the builder to make him correct those

Fig. 21. The Great Metropolitan Life Building Tower, New York City

wrongs and put the house in habitable condition. The court listened and pon-
dered and finally ruled that all those speculatively-built houses were put

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 51

together in a slovenly manner, were liable to fall to pieces, to burn, or any-
thing else; that this was the regular way of building those "for sale" houses,
everyone knew it, and the man was therefore not an "innocent" purchaser in
the eyes of the law. Such houses could not reasonably be expected to last in
first-class shape for over three months and since he had been in the house
that time he had gotten his money's worth. The suit was, therefore, dismissed.

So lega ly, at least in Washington, if a speculatively-built house
stands three months it has completely fulfilled its mission. Three
months !

Attitude of Architects. It has been deplored that the architects
give small encouragement to the fire-protection movement. Too
frequently have they obeyed their client's foolish behests and done
all in their power to get by any means the 'privilege" of building
less resistingly, more "cheaply," than the law permitted. However,
the profession as a whole is now showing more intelligent interest
in the effort to lessen fire's havoc; our architects preach fireproof
construction, urge it, and insist upon it; they advocate city planning
so that fire dangers may be minimized; they do more in the fire pre-
vention line than the law obliges, and it is seemly that they should,
for they ought to know more about building than any one else.

An extract or two from a recent address by President Irving K.
Pond, of the American Institute of Architects, will indicate the
present broadened view of the real function of a building:

The changing conditions of everyday life act as destructive agents, so
that the economic loss in the demolition of the present to prepare the ground
for the future, is as appalling in a way as is the destruction by any of the natural
causes. The philosophic attitude to maintain toward the whole subject is, that
out of each great loss must come some gain, and that no great good is attained
without the payment of an adequate price. And so considering the matter of per-
manent building and protection against the elements, we are brought face to
face with the modern problem which is taxing the ingenuity and genius of our
architects and economists — the problem of city planning for the present and
the future.

The value of building for permanency is to be considered carefully
where conditions are ever shifting, and buildings to serve the special purpose
of today may not meet the requirements of tomorrow. The logic of city plan-
ning must appear as keen as the logic of house planning, and the distorting
of the function of one part of the city must appear just as chaotic and as fatal
to economic order as the derangement of the functions of various rooms in
the dwelling. The furnace room should be equipped to receive the furnace
and fuel and calls for certain protection which need not be afforded to other
portions of the house. To erect the furnace in the drawing-room or to install
the range in the boudoir is to derange the life of the household and stultify

FIRE PREVENTION

the meaning and design of the house and to presage a lapse into barbarism or
to indicate a non-emergence from that estate; and thus is indicated the pos-
sible connection between city planning and logical construction and necessary

Fig. 22. The Fireproof Brooklyn Tabernacle
A combined church and skyscraper, offices, etc.

protection. The logical planning of the city — the laying down of permanent
lines of development, the laying out of permanent avenues, of inter-communi-
cation and lines of transportation, in order that the functions of the various

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 53

portions of the city shall not be deranged, but shall be susceptible of logical
and rational growth and development — bears directly on the matter of com-
parative stability of construction. The wisdom in creating city planning
commissions and even in applying the theory to smaller districts becomes
apparent and should be emulated in our own country by our legislative bodies,
and warrant of law rather than individual initiative should bring about the
desired results. The idea which has been in practice and has justified its
existence for a long time in Austria is coming into vogue in Germany, and is
just now being adopted in England. Various of our American cities are
attacking the problems from some special point of view individual to the
locality, but the wider problem in all its manifold bearings on social organism,
industrialism, housing sanitation, morals, and beauty has as yet to be con-
ceived by the general body of American city planners. When our civilization
is established and we cease to be a restless body pushing forever toward the
frontier, our cities will partake more of the nature of fixed abiding places
and less of the nature of the camp, as our residences of today are smacking
more of the permanency of buildings and less of the ephemeralism of the
tent. At such time sanely-conceived city centers will be established, calling
for permanent structures suited to the needs of the locality, and connected
with other similar centers by great arteries of inter-communication, which
themselves will be of permanent and lasting nature. The industrial quarters,
the resident quarters, the wholesale quarters, will be distinctly differen-
tiated as are the apartments of a logically-designed dwelling and will be sus-
ceptible of logical and predetermined growth. When the laws of economics
shall have been understood, when each man's duty to his neighbor and to
the community shall be as thoroughly recognized as are the rights he arrogates
to himself, when the laws of order and the love of beauty shall have been
established in the heart of the race, the over-topping commercial structure in
the center of other commercial structures or in the center of the resident
district will be a thing of the past. In fact, in the logical city, over- topping
commercial structures will not, as now, add their disfigurement and their
problems of transportation and of sanitation to the neighborhood they infest, and
the matter of protective construction and protective appliances will be simplified.

Passing now to the relationship of construction and protection to city
planning and coming down to first principles, perhaps the most effective
method of protection, as it affects the community generally, would lie in the
operation of a law making the loss or damage to extraneous property or to
life to hold against the owner of the property from which the fire spreads or
the damage emanates. (Our "neighboring risk" theory.) If the title to such
property were vitiated until claims had been settled, there would be less argument
as to the desirability of protection in specific cases, and there would be smaller
need to penalize neighboring buildings of a higher type.

The high-class building should be protected against the lower class
building by equitable legislation and the lower class building should not be
allowed to jeopardize the entire neighborhood as well as itself . At the same time
the higher type of building, especially when it runs into an inordinately high struc-
ture, should not be permitted to jeopardize the safety of life and limb within its own
confines. This entire subject impinges on that of city planning and the local dis-
tribution of various types and industries and commercial activities.

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WEST ELEVATION OF MUNICIPAL ^Ig^BUILD^NG^OR THE CITY OF NEW YORK

McKim, Mead and White, Architects, New York
Ground Floor Plan Shown on Page 428

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

PART II

OUR NATIONAL PROGRESS
^ EVOLUTION OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

Early Forms. Our forefathers, the first settlers, when they
landed on these shores, made themselves rude huts to live in, wooden
shanties and "camps" and stockades to protect themselves from the
Indians. Cabins and cottages succeeded these shanties, but these,
too, were of wood. Then some of the more pretentious "mansions"
were built of brick brought from England or Holland by the ships
\\hich came here so ballasted and with package freight to carry back
the heavier cargoes of grain and the other products of the new land,
although only a few such buildings were built.

Colonial. It was proper to have stone trimmings in combina-
tion with those imported bricks or the home-made article — for it
was not long before they began to bake their own brick, which was a
crude product at first, but rapidly improved until it was as good as or
better than anything they could import — but stone, either the im-
ported or that quarried in our own hills, cost, much money, so they
imitated stone work in wood, painted it, and by and by, sanded it to
look as much like stone as possible. In design they made their build-
ings to look as much like the old be-columned and porticoed, stately,
classic mansions of old England as they could with the skill and
material at hand. In most cases the architecture was pretty seriously
contorted, the work being done by carpenters instead of architects,
columns being elongated and mouldings cruelly and wonderfully
tortured. But it all served their purpose and it became "Colonial,"
the crude attempts of mere colonists to follow the wake of the cul-
tured and wealthy of "merrie olde Englande." Today there is a
class of antique worshipers, alleged trained architects, who fall
down and offer homage to that "style" and in turn give us painful

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 23. The Effect of Fire Upon Sandstone, Usually no Salvage Whatever

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 57

imitations of that early work. With some nothing goes, particularly
in domestic architecture, unless it be strictly "Colonial".

Stone and Brick. Some good architects and mechanics were
imported ultimately and a few of our old buildings, still standing,
are pretty good specimens of art. In the early eighteen hundreds they
built their very important structures of great stone or granite walls,
lead or slate roofs and partitions of brick or stone with floors of
brick arches, groined or arched from wall to wall — pretty solid con-
struction and mightily^ fire-resisting as to structure — though, of
course, they did not protect their windows and simply filled those
buildings with wooden trimmings, wainscoting and ceiling. Fire
could and did clear all this out, perhaps even many times, but the
structures remained intact. Of such is the old Treasury in Wash-
ington, one or two old buildings in New York and in some of the
older cities. Of course, the rank and file of the buildings were, as
they are still, either all of wood, or wood framing in outer walls of
brick, stone, marble, etc. It is indeed pathetic to see some of those
buildings and so many of our new ones with pretentious, ornate,
and massive looking granite and marble exteriors, apparently as
substantial as the rock of ages, but actually enclosing wooden joisted
and framed construction — mere "whited-sepulchres".

Unprotected Iron and Steel. Then we began manufacturing
iron beams, wrought-iron beams and girders, and cast-iron columns.
These were used for the framing of the structures of buildings, the
skeleton beams being spaced 3 and more feet apart and brick arches
thrown from beam to beam, to form the -floors. That was much
easier and cheaper than groined arches from wall to wall. But we
had not learned how to protect that iron work itself and even a very
moderate fire in the contents of a room or its wooden finish and
trimmings, warped and buckled the beams, for their bottom flanges
were of course exposed; when this occurred, down dropped the
brick arches and up went the fire into the next story, growing in
intensity, almost melting the cast-iron columns, and softening them
so that they bent and twisted, and ultimately collapsed with all that
they supported above. Those buildings have been called fireproof
and people wondered why they were not so; why, in spite of the
theories of those times, when they were actually tested, they were
found wanting.

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 24. What Happens to an Insufficiently Fireproof ed Steel Column in a Fire

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 25. An Unprotected Column Will Twist up Like — Cork-Screw
Imagine what happens to the construction it supports

60 FIRE PREVENTION

Tile Protection. Something over thirty years ago they began
making brick into odd shapes, hollow clay tiles, burned the same
as brick, and used them to surround and protect the iron (or later
the steel) columns, girders, and beams. The blocks were shaped
into radial jointed sections of considerable depth that formed arches
between the beams, special sections being made for roof building,
partition tiles, furring, and what not. That really was the beginning
of a new era in building when it was made possible to thus thor-
oughly protect all the metal parts of a building and actually construct
its ordinarily most vulnerable portions, of an imperishable, fire-
resisting material. It permitted the greatest elasticity of arrange-
ment. With the old groined or domed arches of not too great rise,
rooms were restricted to thirty feet, or far oftener less, between sup-
ports ; with this new method, steel girders and trusses could be used,
thus extending the points of support indefinitely, and all this fram-
ing was protected by a material that in its .manufacture had passed
through heat so infinitely more intense than could ever strike it again
in a conflagration that it was practically immune to all fire attack.

Imperfect manufacture, a desire to make the webs and sections
too thin (a commercial profit), sometimes resulted in this tile being
damaged in a bad fire; the ceiling flanges have dropped off — owing
directly to unequal contraction of the parts of the tile after the fire —
and even some of the tile have been in themselves irreparably dam-
aged. However, the units being small, new tile could be substituted
with as great ease as a new pane of glass could be put into a window
and the damage was never "major," i. e., never such as to jeopardize
the safety of the entire building, nor even the story above the fire.

The only cardinal damage that can happen in a tile fireproof
building is when the tile protection is not thoroughly secured to
the columns or to the bottom of the beams, and of course, when once
the steel itself is exposed, that steel portion is subject to all the ills
we have seen it was heir to and actually suffered in the old unpro-
tected steel frame and the "semi" fireproof buildings. Only gross
ignorance or culpable negligence, however, can account for such de-
fective work being done; this tile work is clearly in view all during
the process of construction and the superintendent is indeed lax
who will permit it being poorly done or not discover it if it has been
poorly done in his absence.

Fig. 26. The Effect of Fire Upon Too Thin and Dense Hollow Tile

FIRE PREVENTION

Tile fireproofing has been splendidly improved in the thirty
years of its use. Endless minor tests have been made in addition to
the test of passing through great conflagrations. We have seen
wherein it could be bettered and this improvement has been made,
the work has been systematized and made standard; today it stands
the most nearly perfect fireproofing so far devised.

Fig. 27. A New Form cf Concrete or Clay Blocks — Four Sections Forming a Block
The intervals being filled with concrete forming beams in either direction; an excellent

floor construction

Mam ;ears ago when tile was still expensive work, in fact,
prohibitive save in the most costly buildings, some queer things
were done with it. I well remember the old West Hotel in Minneapolis,
for instance, a costly and prominent structure, but yet one in which
all steel and tile was too costly a system to use. We used the regular
wood joists resting on brick walls, tile partitions, and steel beams;
a light tile ceiling was used at every story and the plastering was
applied directly to that tile instead of the usual wood lath. Many
a fire was started in that hotel, but, owing to even that feeble pro-
tection and prompt action on the part of the firemen, all were speedily
extinguished. A year or two ago they had a disastrous fire there,
the furniture was destroyed and much of the finish, the smoke was

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 63

dense and several lives were lost. Yet that same old tile protected
the wooden floor construction so well that there was scarcely any
actual damage done to the structural parts of the building. It was
redecorated and refurnished in quick order and ready for use at
comparatively little expense for structural repairs. Of course had
it been a conflagration, like the Baltimore or San Francisco fire,
instead of a local, internal and somewhat confined fire, there would
have been but a few charred and ruined walls left to tell the tale.
To be really effective the whole thing must be done thoroughly, as
near perfection as can be.

Corrugated and Plate Floor Construction. What might be called
a direct successor to the brick-arch between-beams construction
was the scheme of bending corrugated metal in arch form between
similar beams and filling up on top to the finished surface of the
floor with a lean concrete little better than broken stone and rubbish.
In a hot fire this sheet metal would, of course, distort and warp out of
position; the flanges of the beams, being unprotected, would also
curve and curl, and the concrete, being generally so very poor, would
offer no resistance at all. The usual result would be that the whole
thing would "go by the board."

Another device which was tried and used quite extensively
was buckle plate flooring. Heavy cast-iroa plates dished upward,
each in the form of a very flat arch or groin rested upon iron beams
set two or three feet apart. Some of these plates had raised webs
upon their upper surface to still further strengthen the metal; and
later they made them of forged, pressed, and shaped wrought iron.
In some cases these plates served as a floor and ceiling both, but
generally only as ceiling and support and were topped off with a
filling of several inches of concrete and a finished floor of cement.

These corrugated and plate floor constructions were used almost
exclusively for warehouse and factory construction, the heavier
buildings (more "semi-fireproof"). Seldom was any attempt made
to protect the columns and girders, with the result that a very slight
fire in the goods or contents would find nothing to feed upon, in all
this iron of the structure, and would be readily extinguished. One
principle of fireproof construction had been put into practice and
after each little fire every one clapped his wings, so to speak, and
proclaimed that this indeed was fireproof construction. But if the fire

FIRE PREVENTION

was not quickly discovered and got pretty hot, hot enough to affect
any or all of the exposed iron work, columns collapsed, floors went
down, the building was wrecked — though not burned down — and
people were as prompt to condemn and to say that of course that
was not fireproof construction and there was not and could not be
any such thing as real fireproof construction!

Fig. 28. Another "Slow-Burning" Fire; 33 Minutes Destroyed the Usefulness
of This Building

Mill Construction. Mill and warehouse fires were disastrously
common and, naturally, engineers and builders were spurred on to
try and devise a construction that would lessen the losses. "Mill
construction" or, as it was also called, "slow-burning construction,"
was evolved. It served its purpose as a step in the general progress
but, largely through the insistent efforts of one enthusiast, the late
Edward Atkinson, engineer, insurance man, statistician, and publicist,
it has been kept in prominence long after its real usefulness was over,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

and is today used to a certain extent in warehouse and factory
construction.

The "slow-burning" theory is a simple one to illustrate. Touch

TYPICAL STOFV.PLAn
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COMMERCIAL- VATIOnAL BAH frBWLDlllG

CHICAGO

Fig. 29. A Typical Fireproof Office Building, The Commercial National Bank of Chicago
There would have been better light and greater safety from fire in the light court had it been
reversed and opened upon a street front instead of upon adjacent buildings, and the stairways
ought to have been enclosed, thus separating the stories

a match to a lot of small pieces of kindling wood in a grate and you
will have a roaring fire in short order— total destruction of the wood;
if you throw water on the fire and extinguish it there will be but a

66 FIRE PREVENTION

few crumbling cinders and ashes as a residue. But if you have a
huge log in the fireplace it takes time and much kindling to get it
ablaze, and once started it burns slowly. Throw water on the fire,
extinguish it, and you will find that the log is only charred upon the
surface; the heart is intact. If you test that log as a support on end—
a column, for instance — its carrying capacity is, of course, only depre-
ciated to the extent of the charring. If the log or post was 10 inches
square and was charred an inch, it would naturally still be equiva-
lent in strength to a post 9 inches square.

So with slow-burning or "mill" construction. Instead of using
joists and studding — the ordinary "kindling" in a building — only
timber of large dimensions is used, and that without any enclosed air
spaces — fire conductors — between floor or walls, air ducts that the
usual joists and studding construction always forms. The posts and
beams are of large sizes and always larger than the actual weight-
bearing construction requires, making allowance for the weakening
due to charring from a possible fire; the floors are of heavy timber 4
inches and thicker, laid tongued and grooved, and generally laid
diagonally and covered with another thick surface of finished flooring.
All of this solid timbering, the floor construction, rests upon the outer
walls and is not bolted or otherwise fastened into those walls, so that
if any portion of the timber work does burn out or is thrown down
it will not pull down the walls too.

If built in strict accord with the Atkinson rules, there are no
openings in floors; the brick and iron stairs are enclosed, as are also
all elevator shafts, in t outer brick bays; floors are drained and scup-
pered to the outside walls; and then every ceiling is well studded with
automatic sprinklers. With such construction, particularly if the
timbering be of hard wood, the resistance of a building to an ordi-
nary fire is very great. The system has saved millions of property,
particularly in the mill districts of Massachusetts and the South,
but it has its limitations well defined. Let the sprinkler system get
out of order, or the watchman fall asleep and the fire get a big
start; or let the building be surrounded by a lot of "ordinary '
buildings and, like the log in the grate, it will not only ultimately be
totally destroyed but it will make a roaring, intense fire the while.
The system is fire-retarding, slow-burning to a degree, in a slow
fire, a step in the right direction, but not in any sense fireproof.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 30. Exterior of the Commercial National Bank at Chicago

[IT IE. 01 Mi

Fig. 31. The First National Bank, One of Chicago's Tall Office Buildings, as Well Fireproofed
as any Specimen of its Kind

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION • 69

Other Retardants. Wire lath and a host of variants in the way
of expanded metal and woven wire mesh have been and still are
used to lessen the fire danger. Ceilings of wire, or such expanded
metal, are hung suspended well below the wood joists; such woven
wire lath is stretched upon the stud partition, it is wound about
wooden posts, and in all these positions when plastered, it is just
that much extra protection of incombustible though damageable
covering to the combustible or damageable structural parts of a
building— retardants of fire but not fireproof.

Along those same lines are the endless patent partition and ceil-
ing systems, "plaster board," magnesia-felt, great thin blocks of
exceedingly light and incombustible plaster on burlap, plastcr-of-
Paris blocks, and slab partitions of every shape and material imagin-
able. These are good in their way, unburnable, but damageable by
fire and destroyed in a conflagration.

Steel=Frame Buildings. Very soon after the first fireproofing
tile was u^)d the steel-framed skeleton construction of buildings
also came into vogue. They are really complements, essential to
each other, the first the natural and logical integument of the second.
Steel without tile or such protection would be valueless for build-
ing, insofar as fire is concerned; certainly we never could have gone
up to fifteen, twenty, thirty and more stories with the unprotected
steel. True, new forms of tile have been devised whereby a house
or other building may be erected of it only, save for a very little
reinforcement of metal bars and without any steel framework; but
the generally accepted construction, particularly of the tall commer-
cial buildings, the "fireproof" structures, has been of steel frame and
tile protection, floors and partitions; or combinations of tile and con-
crete protection, and sometimes all concrete protection.

The steel frame was an American invention. Many engineer,
claim the honor and some are supported by patents that, howevers
have never "stuck". Some do»me the honor, but I really believe
that it was no one man's idea. The necessity 'for going higher in the
air was before us. for property was beginning to be immensely valu-
able in our cities thirty years ago; the demand existed, the solution
of the problem was simple and, undoubtedly, many thought of it
at the same time. The fact remains that the late W. L. B. Jenney,
one of Chicago's foremost architects, was the first one to actually
so construct a building.

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Like most big inventions the thing was simple enough, and
surprising it is that it was not done long before. To cany a build-

Fi<" 32. Chicago's Home Insurance Building, the First Steel-Framed "Skyscraper"

Ever Built

ing to any considerable height the old way, where masonry walls
carried all the loads, the outside walls of a fifteen- or twenty-story

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 33, Putting up One of the Great Steel Framed Monsters of Chicago, the First

National Bank

72 FIRE PREVENTION

building would have to be prohibitively thick at the lower stories.
On a narrow lot, the first or most valuable story would virtually be
all wall, and property was too valuable to be so used. The most
natural thing to do was just what we did, carry up a framework
of iron or steel columns and girders and beams — a steel column
12 inches square will carry as much concentrated load as a masonry
wall 4 feet thick and 20 feet long will carry a distributed load;
the difference between from 60,000 to 80,000 Ibs. per square inch
ultimate resistance to crushing in steel or iron and only 6,000 to 13,000
Ibs. in masonry, plus the thickness required in the latter for the
necessary vertical rigidity and pyramidal spread — and, outside of
all this framing, and supported at each story by shelves and such
fittings attached to the outer girders, or by the girders themselves,
build the outer masonry or curtain walls of such thickness only as
is needed for walls supporting nothing but themselves and but one
story in height. This also permits 'what is most startling to the lay-
man, the building of such outer walls at any point upon the com-
pleted or partially completed frame, regardless of the fact that the
walls below are still unbuilt. This is not done as a tour de force
or whim, but oftentimes because the stone or other material happens
to come that way, and, therefore, instead of delaying all work until
the material can be had in regular sequence of first story first, and
so on up, it is built in as it comes to hand.

Reinforced Concrete. As far back as 1869 French engineers
had patented some forms of reinforced concrete construction. The
first American patent was issued in 1876 to an English-American,
T. Hyatt, for a "combined cement and iron construction of floors/3
but like everything new or revolutionary it was long "a-borning".
A very few buildings were so erected in those early times and it was
but ten years ago that it became at all popular, and but five since
it is really common, although even now there are cities of some size,
where there is not yet a full-fledged reinforced concrete building.

Concrete a Potent Material. No one material ever devised or
discovered has anywhere near the potentialities of concrete, plain
and reinforced. The amount of experimenting upon it, chiefly in
the past ten years, has been phenomenal and yet it is still in its adoles-
cence, essentially its experimental stage. We have barely begun to
know what can be done with concrete and with its binding ingredient,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 34. Carrying up a Reinforced Concrete Building
Columns, beams, and floors of concrete and outer walls usually of brick

FIRE PREVENTION

cement, and still we are using much of it. Of Portland cement alone,
laying aside the many other kinds in use, this country produced
and used last year over 60,000,000 barrels; in 1890 the total produc-
tion scarce reached 300,000 barrels.

Very high authorities are still at outs as to details of construc-
tion; each one has experimented and believes his theories right
and all others wrong. But efforts are now being made to reduce

Fig. 35. Wooden Frames Have to be Built for Every Member
Greater safety and economy will abtain when movable metal forms are more generally used

it all to a positive science, to standardize it, and to establish real
constants.

Uses of Cement. Cement, chiefly as a basis or binder in con-
crete, is useful in a thousand wTays and there are possibilities of its
use in still other thousands. It is supplanting wood and many other
materials. As wood becomes more and more scarce and conse-
quently dearer, cement is produced cheaper, and in larger quantities,
and there is absolutely no possibility, as long as the earth exists, of

Fig. 36. The Bixby Hotel (California) Collapse, a Reinforced Concrete Structure

76 FIRE PREVENTION

exhausting our supply of materials of which cement is manufactured
and concrete formed. It is used upon the farm in making floors,
stables, bins, troughs, fence posts. It is the most plastic of materials,
easily moulded and always available. It is the basis of our roadways
and is made into sidewalks, gutters, curbs, lamp posts, steps. It is
fashioned into buildings, bridges, culverts, railway sheds, steamer
docks, and even boats and barges themselves; it can be made into
mouldings, carvings, ornaments, and is also used in tree doctoring
and what not. It has the great advantage of being a "local" material
anywhere. With most materials, stone, iron, brick, etc., the quarry
or manufactory or shop is established at some convenient point and
the finished material is shipped to wherever it is needed, often long
distances, thus making the transportation costly. Not so with con-
crete, for in this case only the cement, a small part of its total
bulk, need be transported from the place of manufacture, while
the sand, broken stone, slag, or the other inerts of concrete, and
water are always procurable at trifling cost nearer by. The mak-
ing is done upon the site.

Concrete Design Net Yet Standardized. In construction, where
used in compression only and with large factors of safety, in great
masses, piers for foundations, solid walls, bridge abutments, docks,
solid arches in bridges and culverts, it is the ideal thing, easier to
handle than stone or granite and as strong if not stronger. It is onVy
when combined with reinforcing-metal, that there is danger in its
use, in the construction of reinforced concrete buildings and bridges
and such structures.

Many elements enter into this danger. There is no general and
accepted standard of constants, no accepted system in figuring its
values. Few men are re.ally qualified to design such construction
and only the most careful and able mechanics should carry it out.
It is sometimes advertised and exploited as a cheap construction and
often efforts seem to be directed toward still further cheapening it by
poor labor, skimped materials, and insufficient superintendence.
Result: In the past few years there have been a number of collapses
of concrete buildings, fatal ones, and the mode of construction thai
should be made so effective, so popular, has been discredited.

Skilled Labor and Great Care Necessary. My objection to the
use of concrete by every Tom, Dick, and Harry may perhaps be best

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 37. The Collapse of a Reinforced Concrete Warehouse (Philadelphia) while Under Con-
struction

78 FIRE PREVENTION

expressed by an article recently published by a concrete engineer
in one of the architectural journals that devotes so much space to
the new cult that it might almost be called an "organ". The fol-
lowing excerpts will show what is meant:

The ease with which reinforced concrete may be applied to almost any
form of construction, and at the same time the necessity for properly rein-
forcing so as to counteract the effect of tensile strains and stresses, really
divides the work into two heads — the architectural and the engineering.
Therefore, in works of importance it is desirable that the drawings be carefully
gone over by an engineer of practical experience in this method of construc-
tion in order to secure a successful outcome. The work must be subjected
to a rigid inspection at all times, and the contractor is held responsible for the
obtaining of certain test results. The most active inspection will not always
prevent poor workmanship or faulty construction, either of which can destroy
the strength of structures made by the best materials. The proportion of the
concrete may not be in all parts according to specifications; good judgment
may not have been exercised in gauging the quantity of water. If too much
water is added, the strength of the concrete, and especially its coefficient of
elasticity, will be decreased; if too little water be added the adhesion of the
concrete to the reinforcing metal will not be sufficient.

Great care must be exercised in the inspection of materials that they be
made up to the standard required. All cement should be tested on the
ground to ascertain its tensile and compressive strength, and to establish the
evenness in grade, and no cement should be used which shows disintegration
in the boiling test. The sand must be carefully inspected to see that it is clean
and free from impurities and not too fine — not over 25 per cent of its bulk
should pass a 30 mesh sieve. The crushed rock must be hard and free from
shale or decomposed particles, and not too coarse — all should pass a f-inch
sieve. The steel, if not twisted, shall be tested to ascertain if its quality is
correct. If twisted, the twist should be measured to ascertain if it has the
correct number of turns per foot, according to its size. Hard steel or what is
termed "high carbon steel" should not be used in tensional work as it is liable
to snap when loaded. Quite as important as the quality of the material is the
placing of the same.

In order to secure the intended action of the steel, care must be exer-
cised that it be placed on the lines of the stresses created in tension, shear or
compression; otherwise its effectiveness will be lost in whatever degree it is
misplaced. The misplacement of the reinforcing metal changes the con-
struction from reinforced concrete to simply a protection of steel by concrete
and, unless the steel be excessively heavy, failure is sure to result. Care must
also be taken with the concrete that the proper percentages of its component
parts are properly massed and mixed, and that the proper amount of clean
water is incorporated. Great care must also be exercised in the placing and
tamping of the concrete in the forms in order to secure uniform density through-
out the entire mass and perfect contact over the entire surface of the reinforc-
ing metal.

Limitations of Concrete. Concrete, particularly reinforced con-

80 FIRE PREVENTION

crete, is problematic, and every day a fresh surprise is given us in the
unexpected way in which it acts under certain conditions. A good
illustration of this is the failure of concrete slabs in the roof of the
train shed of the La Salle Station, Chicago, after eight years of ex-
posure to moisture and gases. An extract from the Engineering
News of July 21, 1910, gives the details:

The failure (by disintegration) of reinforced concrete slabs forming the
roof of the train shed of the La Salle Station, Chicago, indicates the necessity
of preventing the access of moisture and gases to reinforced cinder-concrete,
or the advisability of using other material in cases where there is liability of
exposure to such influences. The gradual disintegration of these roof slabs
has necessitated their renewal over a considerable area of the train shed.
It appears upon further investigation that the porous character of the con-
crete and the use of cinder aggregation were the causes of the failure. The
original slabs were about 5 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 inches thick, reinforced
with expanded metal of about 3-inch mesh and No. 12 giuge. The exterior shell
was about \ inch to f inch thick and was composed of gravel concrete; the
interior portion was of cinder-concrete, probably for the purpose of reducing
the weight of the slab. According to official information, the cause of the
disintegration was that the gases and moisture from below penetrated through
the gravel concrete shell and entered the cinders. This led to the rusting of
the steel, causing it to swell (or enlarge in section) in places and crack off
the concrete. The new slabs are made of stone concrete throughout, and
when finished they are treated with a solution which is designed to close and
seal all pores, so that neither gas nor moisture can penetrate the facing of the
concrete. Whether any thought was given to the possibility of corrosion of
the steel reinforcement when the roof covering was designed (some eight years
ago) we do not know, but if so, it may have been assumed that the ventilation
of this lofty arched roof would be sufficient to dilute and carry off any deleteri-
ous gases.

Concrete is also staunchly advocated as a "fireproof" material.
I contend that it is one of the most fire-resisting but not "fireproof,"
not nearly so much so as is brick or any of the other burned-clay
products, although it comes next in order to these.

Cities are now legislating specially upon that subject, compre-
hensive regulations are being passed providing for special inspection
and tests; in some places it is made obligatory that the work be carried
on only by experts, and it is being put upon a sane and safe basis.

Steel and Tile vs. Reinforced Concrete. In the course of years
the question of fireproofing a building has been reduced to this —
regardless of the hundred and one other items that are necessary to
make it thoroughly fire-resisting — which system cf structural fireproof-

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 83

ing shall be used, (a) a steel frame and hollow fireproof tile protec-
tion, floors and partitions, (b) a steel frame and concrete protection and
floor arches, or (c) a reinforced-concrete construction? And the ques-
tion is asked insistently and debated acrimoniously. It is really clay
tile vs. concrete fireproofing. And it is not a merely academic ques-
tion, nor one that interests only specialists and the different manu-
facturers, but is one of fact, a large and most important fact.

The best engineers now concede that reinforced concrete is a
structural material and requires protection as does steel and iron,
that in itself it is fire-resisting but its disintegration under fire is
liable to be such as to expose the reinforcing steel or so to weaken
it as to render the whole construction dangerous. Some advise that,
like the steel, it be covered with protecting tile, while others — and
they are perfectly right — maintain that all that need be done is
to make the floors and beams and girders thicker and the columns
larger all around by an inch or two more of concrete than is actu-
ally required for the strength of the member, such additional mate-
rial serving only as a fire retardant and the structural value of the
member itself being in no way impaired even if its protecting coat-
ing be entirely destroyed. This is on the same principle as the
making of the wooden members of "slow-burning" construction
larger than needed, so that an inch or so may burn off without in
any way affecting the stability of the building. The cheapest con-
crete could be used for its protecting coat, viz, cinder concrete,
which is really one of the most fire-resisting of concretes-^provided
you are sure of cinders and not coal dust and dirt — but the authorities
are afraid of using it in structural work on account of its destructive
effect upon the steel reinforcement, so that in most cities it is abso-
lutely barred in reinforced-concrete construction.

Burnt clay is unquestionably the most fireproof, the least dam-
aged by excessive heat, of anything that has ever been or is known
and used in the building trades! And it is not of yesterday or the
day before. Like gold that has been the standard of value from
time immemorial, so is burnt clay the most resisting element, the
standard material of imperishable construction. Examine the ruins
of ancient Greece and of Rome and you will find monuments
of stone and of marble crushed and battered and decayed and
their dates a matter of question and speculation; but whatever

84 FIRE PREVENTION

you find of burnt clay is intact, clean cut, exactly as it was fash-
ioned by the hand of the primitive clay worker. In Egypt, in
Assyria, in Babylon even we have sun-baked bricks 3,000 and
4,000 years old and as good as new. At first Christian works
were fashioned in the clay products and the art was carried to great
perfection in the first capital of Christendom, Byzantium. And
since that time — cavil and carp at that notion as we may, we must
concede that Persian art and then Arabian art (preserved to us by a
strange anomaly by the so-called barbarian and all-destroying Moslem)
has been the refining influence of our modern art. And the perfec-
tion of its expression is to be found in its sub-art of ceramics — the
burnt-clay products.

Whatever deterioration or ruin there may ever have been in the
brick and tile buildings of antiquity or of modern times, has never
been caused by the disintegration or any inherent fault of the material
itself, but has always occurred through the failure of the binding
material, the mortar used in cementing those parts together. The
concrete enthusiasts point with pride to the noble Pantheon at
Rome as the very apogee of concrete construction, the greatest piece
of vaulting ever done in the olden times. It may be well to add, lest
we forget, that the main ribs of the magnificent vault are built, not
of concrete, not of stone, not of steel, but of a far more perfect material
than any of these, brick. The whole building, in its structural parts,
is of brick, and concrete finds its true place in construction, viz, in
masses, in the filling in, in the panels of that dome. But the claims
of our too enthusiastic concreters are no more foolish and ill-placed
than are those of some manufacturers of one clay product or another
who would have their material the only one used. The idea, for
instance, that a rough hollow tile block can serve, not only as a struc-
tural unit but also as a finished well surface, as an ornament, as a roof,
aye, even as the mortgage on a house!

All this may seem irrelevant but it is not. The student, I submit,
should not only know the relative merits of each system but also the
strength, the bias, the objects of the parties back of the systems.
In the study of government, for instance, we should not only observe
what has been accomplished, the legislative acts, and all that, but
we should also know about the parties, the relative influence and
power of each, what each has accomplished, and what each stands

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 41. Reinforced Concrete Work in England
Tynemouth Palace, huge spans in concrete floor construction

FIRE PREVENTION

for. So with fireproofing. There are two camps, the steel and tile
camp and the reinforced-concrete camp — Republican and Democrat
as it were — I have not a particle of use for a man who sits upon the
fence. I am a strict party man and warn you accordingly. I can see
the good in the other party, and I will give it what I deem a fair show,
but I am by training, selection, environment, and firm convictions,
a staunch Republican and a steel and tile man, and I am very
much opposed to the indiscriminate and general use of reinforced-

Fig. 42. A Collosal Concrete Lion for a Bridge Approach

It is really a wonder that more such ornamental, decorative, monumental work
is not done in concrete, being cheaper than bronze or stone, and just as effective,
lasts as well and has the additional virtue of being easily repaired if it should be
damaged — something almost impossible to do to bronze or stone

concrete construction, and in favor of limiting its use to experts
only and even then under the strictest municipal regulations and
inspection.

Much concrete work is done, but in the larger, more important
buildings, steel frame and tile construction is still the leader. In
New York, for instance, where there are more concrete engineers
and systems than anywhere else, it was protestingly claimed by con-
crete advocates in a recent hearing before the Mayor that 60 per cent

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

of all the fire-proofing done in the city was executed by one tile
company, the remaining 40 per cent being divided among the other
tile companies and all the reinforced-concrete companies together.
The ' 'supplanting" of steel and tile we read about has apparently yet
a long way to travel. Even the most enthusiastic votaries of rein-

Fig. 43. Concrete Residence in Cologne

The Germans attempt greater variations in external concrete work than we do. Looking
at this and other German designs, freakish in the extreme, we are prompted to thank our
stars that we make few such attempts

forced concrete only claim, however, that it is "as good as steel and
tile". The only advantage I can see in it is that you can always get
cement anywhere arid can usually procure sand and slag or broken
stone or gravel and light steel sections and water with as great facility,

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 44. A Concrete Water Tower
(Not likely to be exposed to fire!)

A CONCRETE TABLE OR STAND.
GENSCH STUDIO, CHICAGO.

A CONCRETE 'GAKOEN OR. TERRACE SEAT.
GENSCH STUDIO, CHICAGO.

•LPTOR, CHICAGO.

A SINGLE DESIGN ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO
CONCRETE. GENSCH STUDIO, CHICAGO.

A CONCRETE PANEL.
GENSCH STUDIO, CHICAGO

Fig. 45. Admirable Decorative Work in Concrete

No material lends itself so readily to plastic modeling and casting. If care be used it can
be kept from crazing in setting, and besides being less costly than terra cotta, it has also the
advantage of "being repairable after a fire and at slight expense. It can be patched and colored
as good as new, while damaged stone or terra cotta has to be taken out and entirely replaced
with new.

FIRE PREVENTION

so that reinforced concrete can be made in any locality. On the
other hand big steel sections, beams, girders, etc., and fireproofing
tiles are sometimes hard to get and are consequently costly, on
account of the haul, far from the big mills and factories of Ohio and
the East, so that in the remote South and far West that construction
is in some cases really prohibitive. Chas. H. Bebb, the leading

Fig. 46. Effective and Artistic Combination of Concrete and Enamel Tile

architect of Seattle, expressed that phase of the subject most clearly
and emphatically in an address given in that city. In brief —

It would occupy too much time and it is hardly necessary that I should
go back to the history of the beginning of steel construction. Cast-iron columns
and roll-steel beams and girders were used prior to 1888. From this time, how-
ever, what is known as the steel skeleton construction has been fully developed,
and it has become the vital part of the building, and what every conscientious

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 91

architect is seeking today is the question of how practically, scientifically and
absolutely to cover the "skeleton" inside and out with incombustible material,
under widely varying conditions and contingencies.

There are two classes of use for burned clay in fireproof buildings: one
when used constructively under pressure, and the other when used as a non-
conducting and structure-protecting material. In the first case it must sus-
tain strains and at the same time resist heat for its own protection and in the
other it acts only for the protection of the steel members of the building.
In some, it performs both offices, as in the case of floors and roofs; in others
it is inert as used in protecting steel columns and girders.

In considering the use of burned clay products for exterior walls, we have
structural terra cotta and brick, or a combination of both, to select from.
Experience has taught us that the employment of these materials for protect-
ing the steel framework of the modern building is as essential as the foundation
and framework. The modern high building has a function to perform outside
of its own structural integrity; in case of a conflagration it must serve as a
check to the onward rush of flames and superheated air. The proper anchor-
ing and tying of the fireproof material to the steel frame to prevent the build-
ing from shedding its masonry work is one of vital importance. Terra cotta
in combination with bricks is the lightest building material to be had that
satisfies all the requirements of modern office buildings. These raw materials
come in convenient shapes and are quickly and easily handled, an essential
factor these days in putting up expensive buildings.

A building covered with structural terra cotta is the fireproof wall that
can be placed in the path of a conflagration, and, on account of its comparative
lightness, it has become almost a necessity in twenty- and thirty-story sky-
scrapers. From the architectural point of view there is no material which
offers greater possibilities of beauty and harmony of coloring as well as such
virtues as strength, durability, lightness and great fire-resistance. In reply
to a communication as to the life of a well-designed and executed building
of the steel-skeleton type — the question having been brought up by the Board
of Regents of the University of the State of Washington — Irving K. Pond,
the President of the A. I. A., considers that they would virtually be in as
good condition structurally at the end of a fifty-year period as at the beginning.
New methods of damp-proofing make the protection of the steel frame altogether
practicable, and the glazing or under-glazing of terra cotta well adapts that
material to withstand the ravages of frost and dampness.

Coming to the question of interior fireproofing, I again affirm that
hollow clay material of what is known as porous terra cotta is the best material
for floor construction yet devised, which equally applies to partitions and
roofing. As essential as the proper protection of the steel frame in the outside
walls is the proper construction and the use of right materials in the floor
construction and protection of the interior columns.

The poorest form of construction for forms is the reinforced concrete
where the aggregate is composed of gravel. Professor Woolson states, after
exhaustive tests, in Section 4 of his report as follows: "Concrete made with
gravel aggregate is so weak after the fire test that it is practically impossible
to test its strength". James Sheppard, in a paper read before the Inter-
national Congress at Milan, Italy, says: "It has been conclusively proved

FIRE PREVENTION

that concrete made with gravel aggregates is especially unreliable under the
action of fire, and the same may be said of other dense material. Aggregates
that have passed through fire and are of a porous nature, such as broken brick
clinkers, clean coke breeze, offer the greatest resistance to fire".

It would merely seem common sense to prohibit the use of gravel rein-
forced concrete for floor construction in the modern skyscraper, and where,
on account of cost, this style of floor construction is adopted, only burned

Fig. 47. Architect Wynkoop of New York has Shown Himself a Master of

His Art in This Work

Usually the idea prevails that concrete has to be designless, ugly strictly
utilitarian — probably because engineers generally design it — while, as a
matter of fact, the material being so very plastic and adaptable, beautiful
results may be obtained, as in this case, and probably at less cost than in
any other material, by understanding the medium and handling it intelli-
gently rather than endeavoring only to imitate some other material en-
tirely foreign to it

clay products or materials that have been through the fire should be allowed
in the matrix.

Porous terra cotta should be the only material allowed for fireproofing
columns, and the greatest care should be used in the method in which material
is placed in the building. It is unnecessary that I should speak on the subject

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 49. Artistic Concrete Wgrk

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 50. Concrete House

of partition tile, roofing, furring tile. They are so abundantly superior to any
of their popular substitutes that words would be wasted. The fact that they
are not procurable in this market at reasonable rates appears to me the sole
reason why they are not as extensively used here 'as they are in the eastern
states. But I want to say to you that the demand here is among architects
endeavoring to do the best class of work, and the field is open for the clay
workers of the greater Northwest to fill.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

PART III

A FIREPROOF BUILDING IN DETAIL

Outside Walls. If the building is to be in a congested, hazard-
ous district, surrounded with combustible buildings, then should
the outside walls be of brick, good, hard-burned, common, clay brick
in preference to the fancy pressed and moulded kinds — I abomi-
nate the sand-lime kind. Concrete brick will give a good account of
itself in a fire. Granite, marble, lime and sand-stone are but little
better, one than the other. If the building is isolated and there is
no danger of attack from the outside, then granite, marble, or stone
is all right, but in a fire of any intensity two or three inches of sur-
face will fly off, chip, spall or actually (in granite) explode; mouldings
are destroyed and such stone work has to be entirely done over again.

If there should happen to be a pretty hot blaze in any room the
window lintels and jambs of the stone work would go. This runs
counter to the general idea that if a building is to be the least bit
monumental the first thing that suggests itself is granite. It is asso-
ciated in our minds with all that is enduring, everlasting; and it is
a most lasting material under all other tests than fire, but in that it
acts about as badly as any material can.

Concrete wall surfaces spall and crumble under fire, but to a
far less extent than do marble and granite and stone, and it has the
virtue of being easily stuccoed or plastered over or patched so as to
be nearly as good as new after a fire and at far less cost than for
repairing a stone wall.

Ornamental Surfaces. Ornamental surfaces, carvings and
mouldings, cornices, etc., had far better be of terra cotta than of
stone or marble. But so many terra cotta manufacturers are making
their ornamental pieces extra thin, sharp angled inside and other-

TKe Great
Wall of
NeW YorR

Every window opening in sight

is glazed with "Wire Glass'-' ( 79!^

of' it being polished). It stands

barrier against the progress

nnllagration, protecting itself,

the 'great buildings in the

; tinancial district to windward. An

extension oi this building is in

>our|e of erection to occupy the

itefo'rjnerly covered by the Boreel

Building, in the foreground.*

*(n. the addition to the Trinity

.Building,, as also, the great Really
^Builcling"v'ad joining, "Wire Glass"
w.li be employed lor fire protection.

Fig. 51. The Great Fire Barrier in New York City

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 99

wise so defective that in several fires, noticeably at Baltimore and
San Francisco, much of it gave a rather poor account of itself. A
shame, too, for with a little care it could be made, and in most cases
is, the ideal ornamental medium. It is somewhat of a surprise to me
that cement is not more exploited for ornamental work in lieu of
stone and terra cotta. It can be made to look as well, is so plastic
and easily moulded at trifling cost, and has the virtue that if damaged
by fire it can be patched and repaired as good as new without delay
and at insignificant expense.

Galvanized iron and other metals used in cornices and external
ornamental work are sure to be twisted and warped and "thrown"
in fire. They have the questionable virtue of being easily re-
placed at no great cost and their destruction does not affect in any
way the stability or safety of the structure itself or of its contents.
But it also must be remembered that this argument is a species of
sophistry, which we could apply to very many parts of a building.
The really fireproof building is one in which the fewest parts can
be damaged to any appreciable extent.

Wall Openings. What is the use of building resisting brick walls
in the hope that fire will attack them and considerately not seek
ingress via the easy window route? What protection is a wooden
sash and glass window? Seventy-three per cent of all damage done
by fire to buildings other than those in which it originates is attribu-
table to improperly protected exterior openings, windows, and doors.
More than 48 per cent of the entire fire loss of the country is directly
traceable to lack of proper window protection'.

Door and Window Shutters. All sorts of rolling steel shutters,
automatically closing iron shutters, sliding shutters, and window-
and door-protecting devices are on the market. * Sometimes the
"automatic" device works and sometimes it does not. If we
depend upon such shutters being closed by hand we know that
man is fallible, that watchmen do not always watch, and that even
if closed an intense fire may twist and open them and let fire in.
They have done good work but a door or window shutter made of
two thicknesses of boarding with tin between and covered with tin,
is the best of shutter protection. The wood may become charcoal
in a stiff fire but the shutter will hold its place and do the protecting
all through that fire. I have had the greatest satisfaction with those

100 FIRE PREVENTION

wood and tin shutters hung to slide in grooves, as a guillotine, and
held in place by a fusible plug or even a cotton cord that is severed
by the slightest blaze so as to let the shutters down tight as wax.

Fig. 52. Fire Doors (Wire Glazed) at Frequent Intervals are a Great Protection

The very best of protection is wire glass in metal cr asbestos
sash and frames, and plate glass is better than common glass. In a
very hot fire the glass will crack and break but the wire holds it in
place and while one might imagine fire would strike through the

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

101

broken fissures it does not. Wire glass has saved millions of prop-
erty in the few years of its use. Like the wood- and tin-shutter it
has to be replaced after a fire for appearance' sake, though even in

Fig. 53. If Brick or Tile or Concrete Enclosing Walls to Stairs and Elevators are Unde-
sirable, then Install Frames and Wire Glass

its broken condition it will withstand a second and a third fire. Now,
even in wire glass, there are degrees of excellence. The ordinary
make is a layer of molten glass laid upon a moulding bed, then the
wire placed upon that surface and another layer of glass over the

102 FIRE PREVENTION

wire. Rapid as the process is there is a brief interval for the cooling
of the surfaces and a slightly imperfect adhesion results. In an in-
tense fire these three layers have a tendency to part and that causes
much of the crackle. A solid wire glass made by introducing the
wire into the molten glass at one operation, will stand a greater heat
without crackling and will remain in better shape to resist another
and still another fire.

A chemist has lately achieved a perfectly transparent, heavy
plate glass so annealed that it will stand 3,000 degrees of heat.
That would place it outside of the possibility of fire damage; but,
like radium, for instance, it is so costly as to be absolutely prohibitive
and, according to this chemist, could only be made in small pieces.
Yet he has pointed the way, and the time may not be far distant
when we will have transparent parts of buildings of as great strength
and resistance to fire as the solid brick walls themselves. Indeed,
who says we may not some day do away with "windows" and have
transparent walls that may be curtained where privacy is desired?

Skylights and Transoms. Nor has anything better than wire
glass and metal framework — -with as little of the latter exposed as
possible — so far been devised for skylights and for "borrowed"
lights in partitions, transoms, etc. Wherever you must have light
or any opening, protect that opening with wire glass. Let the
whole of the outside of a building be brick wall and wire glass
and with as little of exposed metal frames, mullions, transoms, and
such details as possible, and you may rest in perfect safety insofar as
external attack is concerned.

It is the fashion to advise wire glass only for the windows on
narrow alleys or for windows above a lower and combustible build-
ing. In those positions it is absolutely necessary; but you may judge
what a poor policy it is to dispense with the wire glass in the win-
dows facing the street, when I tell you I have seen fire jump across
a street 60 feet wide, go straight through the windows, and destroy
the building. That was not in a great conflagration either. In
Baltimore and in San Francisco I have seen evidences of fires
actually leaping across spaces 100 and more feet wide. Windows
right at the ground level, like store windows, suffer least from fire
across a street. If the opposite buildings are five and six stories
high, your windows above the sixteenth floor suffer little, the main

'FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 103

attack being usually from the third story up to three or four stories
abrve the opposite building.

Rooting. Common sense, that most necessary of fireproofing
requisites, must tell you that shingle roofs burn easily, for spares
s< t them afire at a very long range; tar and pitch composition, if
j articularly well graveled, will not yield very quickly to sparks, but
sdll melt and run off under moderate heat; slate roofs pop and
break much as granite does under heat, though no mere sparks may

Fig. 54. A Tile Viaduct in Chicago

•"?.;._

a%et them; copper, tin, or other metal is not affected by sparks,
but .will buckle and pull under heat; lead will melt and a shower of
moften lead is not conducive to the best of humor on the part of the
firemen; asbestos and cement shingle is cheap, looks just like wood—
a great virtue to many — is as easily put on, and is splendidly fire-
proof; a heavy roof (clay) tile is the only thing better and more fire-
resisting than asbestos shingle, but, too, it is the most costly roof of all.
Piers and Foundations. All piers and foundation work had better
be of concrete. In most of such situations, in the ground, for example,

101

FIRE PREVENTION

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 105

fire cannot possibly get at the work, and where fire can reach it, as
in furnace rooms, etc., it should be protected with a furring of tile
or with a layer of brick, or 2 inches extra of concrete that may
be damaged without affecting the stability of that pier or wall.

Structural Parts. The skeleton, the structure proper, I con-
tend, had, better be of steel, while others with equal insistence con-
tend for the skeleton of reinforced concrete. In either case every
bit of that structural support should be protected from fire by tile
or concrete. The floors should be of brick, tile, or concrete, the
partitions of tile, concrete, wire lath and plaster, or plaster board,
with the preference in the order given. All the steel work should
first be coated with cement "grouting" (cement and sand) quite
thin so that it may get into every interstice and thoroughly protect
all the steel from rust. If concrete is used for the fire protection
make it thin enough so that there will be no voids against the steel
and under no circumstances use cinder concrete where it will be in
contact with the steel. Concrete of slag and clinker, broken brick
and terra cotta, crushed trap, granite and lime stone and last gravel,
is the order of fire resistance.

Tile Protection. In tile work, porous terra cotta blocks only
should be used (the clay is mixed with sawdust that is burnt out in
the kilns where heat of 2,600 degrees and over is maintained).
The dense tile breaks more easily, contracts more unevenly and is
in every way less desirable.

For ceilings, domes and broad arched surfaces there is a slab tile
— Guastavino system — of exceptional beauty, 'and though apparently
light, it is a construction of the very greatest strength, a finished
structural tile splendidly adapted to church groining, bank and
other domes, viaducts, etc., where plastering finish would be out of
harmony with the heavy monumental character of the rest of the work.

Fire will expand all tile covering and if there is no room for
that expansion at the top it will "throw" the tile out and attack the
steel. There should always be a space left open at the top of the
column at each story, a wide joint filled with asbestos felt. This
will not burn out and the expansion of the tile will merely compress
it and entirely close that joint.

Floors. The floors should not be cut and butchered for pipes
and ducts, these being laid on top of the tile or concrete floor con-

106 FIRE PREVENTION

struction and embedded in the filling concrete or "built-up" false
tile filling upon which is laid the finished surface of the floor, a
cement, tile, or other fire-resisting material. Building regulations
permit in buildings of limited heights, wood-finished floors on wooden
sleepers, buried in the concrete. It is bad practice for it puts just
that much wood in a building, fuel for fire. However, being em-
bedded in concrete, it burns slowly and is not nearly as bad practice
as wooden wainscoting or wooden ceilings.

In stores or warehouses where the basements are to be filled
with goods, and even where a sprinkler system is installed, it is well
to have capped hose-holes in the first floor through which water may
be hosed into the cellar at different points without the firemen hav-
ing to go into the cellar.

The custom of having great open, galleried courts in stores and
office buildings is destruction-inviting. Fire's tendency is ever upward
and in such a store it will fairly leap from cellar to attic, carried by
the great mass of combustible goods usually found in stores. Each
story should be an absolutely isolated unit and one of not much over
5,000 square feet — that is about the maximum of unbroken area
that can easily be managed. Floor areas larger than that should be
cut up by fire walls and doors.

External Light=Courts. If external light-courts are designed,
the walls should be thick enough to protect the steel and stand the
blast of .fire from a room opposite and every window should be metal-
sashed and wire-glazed. External light-courts should be upon one's
own premises or facing the streets, rather than facing and opening
upon a neighboring property. A joint light-court or one abutting
upon adjacent buildings is an extra hazard.

Stairs and Elevator Shafts. The stairs should be in an enclosed
part, a stair hall, and with automatically closing fire doors at each
story, doors which open into the stair hall but which are kept closed
on a spring or other device; and severe penalty should be the portion
of any one blocking such a door open.

In the same manner elevator-shafts should be enclosed in fire
walls and with self-closing doors at each story, or else with iron
frames and wire glass. The great principle is to keep fire from com-
municating from one story to another.

Halls and Exits, In long halls, such as are needed in hotels,

[FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 107

for instance, self-closing fire doors like those here described, placed
at intervals, are a great protection. Main stairs and elevators should
always be planned to debouch on the first floor, right at an outside
door or into a passageway communicating directly to the street and
not having any openings thereto from stores and basements. The
object is to provide direct exit to the street. What is the use of bring-
ing people in safety down from the upper floors to put them out into

Fig. 56. A Hot Fire in One Room of a Chicago Fireproof Building
The fire was held in that unit and did no damage to any structural part,

a burning first floor to grope around trying to find the exit to the
street? Make it direct and fireproof so that people leaving the
elevator or stairs can do nothing else but get right out into the street.
Remember that however many fire escapes are provided, the tend-
ency of people will always be to escape via the route they came in by
or use daily; for this reason the importance of making that route
the safest and most available way of getting out is evident. It is

108 FIRE PREVENTION

remarkable, however, how quickly people learn to have confidence
in a reasonably good building. Sometime ago there was a fire in a
well-built Chicago office building. It damaged some ducts and
several rooms, the whole lire department was there and much hose
was stretched and there was great excitement. Of course many oc-
cupants hustled out, but tenants in surprising numbers went on with
the routine of business and calmly looked at the crowds and firemen.
They realized they were perfectly safe — that the building could
stand anything but a conflagration test.

Shafts. Pipes, ducts, wires, etc., should be carried up vertically
in fireproof shafts with fire doors at the stories where openings are
needed. It is surprising to find so-called "fireproof" and expensive
buildings with such ducts made of wood, continuous boxes from
cellar up and as effective in carrying fire all through a building as a
wick in carrying oil to a flame in a lamp!

Use of Wood. Avoid wood as you would a pestilence, a quaran-
tined house! It has been common where wood-finished floors are
used, to lay such a floor over the entire story and then build the tile
fireproof partition wherever needed on top of that wood floor. And
also it is quite customary to build into such partitions, wooden frames,
jambs, and lintels for partition windows. Then in a fire, the wooden
jambs, frames, and floors would burn away and let the partitions
down. It is necessary that such partitions should have suitable
foundations, just as any other wall should have. Set them upon the
solid tile and steel or concrete floors; do not wedge them tightly
against the ceiling but leave a small open joint of asbestos felt at the
top for expansion under fire; and use metal frames and sash and
wire glass for all partition lights.

Interior Woodwork. The tendency to use fancy and expensive
woods for interior decoration is ingrown, and it takes an effort to get
it out of our systems. A "mahogany" finished parlor, or an oak
wainscoted dining room, represent the top notch of most housewives'
ambition, and it seems rather cruel to deprive them of these ap-
parently harmless luxuries. Fine marbles can also most cruelly
suffer if a fire attains any fierceness in a room, and, although it will
not burn as will the wood, it will have to be entirely replaced.
Therefore, whatever there has to be, let it be of metal— metal doors,
metal frames, etc. A wood-filled metal-covered door that is par-

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 109

ticularly good and not costly is on the market. But if you must use
wood doors, for instance, make them with as little framing and or-
nament about them as you can.

General Fireproof Features. Everything burnable or damage-
able you put into or about a building lessens its fireproofness just
that much. If you get enough of it in, you jeopardize even the fire-
resisting structural parts. One is not justified in calling a building
fireproof if, after a surrounding conflagration, it costs 40 per cent to
CO per cent of its original cost to put it in habitable shape. Per-
fection is not a usual accompaniment to things mundane, so an
absolutely perfect building is a rarity — indeed, I know of only the
one before mentioned, the Underwriters' Laboratory at Chicago,
in the entire country — but allowing a good margin for human falli-
bility and all that, we are justified in demanding that a fireproof
building be done so well that in the supreme test — a conflagration —
not over 10 per cent of its cost value will be needed to repair it and
that only in its decorative, non-structural parts. The structure
itself should be intact, and the building should provide absolute
safety to all life within it and to the major part of its contents. If a
fire is of internal origin, then that building should be so cut up and
the units so protected, that life is perfectly safe in it; the occupants
of one part need not even know there is fire in another part and 85
per cent of the contents of that building should be absolutely safe.

Few terms in the English language are more abused than that
self-same "fireproof '. Hotel keepers, whose buildings are veritable
tinder boxes, paint those fire traps with some advertised fireproof
paint and then in the most perfect effrontery proclaim those build-
ings as absolutely fireproof. Storage warehouses are also arch
offenders. Just about one in ten is even moderately safe, but was
there ever one that did not proclaim in letters six feet high that it
was "absolutely fireproof?" The official labeling of buildings as to
their class of construction, as has been already described and advo-
cated, would stop that false pretense and effectually put the too-con-
fiding public on its guard.

Wall Finish. To go on with our ideal building, use good plaster.
Well applied to tile or concrete, it will fill all cracks and be just that
much more protection. In a hot fire and if water be thrown on it,
it will crack and fall off in big patches but it will have protected the

110

FIRE PREVENTION

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 111

structural parts just that much from the first hot blast. You cannot
depend upon it for complete fire protection — although many igno-
rantly do so — but it is helpful. Every coating of an unburnable,
even though damageable material which is put on over steel or con-
crete is just that much additional protection. A good overcoat will
keep you warm and protect you from the snow; an additional coat,
even if only of alpaca, will make you some warmer and keep the
snow from wetting the overcoat.

Then let your decorations be in colors. A good artist will make
your walls and ceilings beautiful, symbolic, warm or cool, anything
your fancy may demand, and much more effectively and at far less
cost than your decorator can do with expensive woods and precious
draperies and hangings. If you have the money, indulge in grand
mural paintings, plastic ornament, panels and gildings and mould-
ings; if only moderately circumstanced, judiciously paint your plain
walls and ceilings and be happy and safe.

Furnishings. In furnishing use the same good judgment. What
is the use of filling a house with heavy wooden bedsteads, cupboards,
and what not, and hanging endless curtains and draperies at every
door and window? Greater simplicity is far more attractive and much
safer. Think of the many serious fires and accidents to people you
hear of that have been caused by curtains blowing against a gas jet
or being ignited from striking a match to light the gas or a cigar.
There are all kinds of furniture — office and store and house furniture
—made of metal, pretty, dainty, light, incombustible, and in every
way superior to wood, while being, in the long run, no more expensive.

Such, briefly, are the general principles of fireproof construc-
tion and their application. Use nothing actually combustible; if
you use anything incombustible but damageable, then protect it
with material that is not damageable or that, if it be damageable,
will protect it and be easily reparable afterward.

Special Requirements. Theater. Each class of buildings, as
to its use, has, of course, requirements of its own. A theater has
infinite details. The proscenium division must be an absolute cut-
off; a steel and concrete or asbestos sliding curtain is the best; all
of the stage that can be, should be of metal and brick; there is bound
to be much scenery and burnable property, so that the stage should
be really a great flue with an easily opening skylight, automatic pre-

Fie 58 After the Holocaust in the Terrible Iroquois Theater Fire , at Chicago , December

30, 1903

Fig. 59. The Iroquois Theater from the Stage

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 113

ferred, and of large size. If a fire gets beyond the control of the
stage hands and special firemen, then it will burn the scenes and all
such stuff and destroy everything upward and the 'smoke will pour
out of the skylight; in this way the fire will spend itself upon the
stage part and be warded off of the audience room. Here we have
the direct opposite of the store or office building, but we must look
upon the stage as one unit and must deem it necessary to make all of
its structure fire-resisting and that which is not, had better be de-
stroyed as fast as possible if we cannot smother the fire in its in-
fancy. No building needs greater watchfulness than the theater. The
auditorium is to be considered as another single unit, but there is
nothing about it one cannot cope with successfully if he but follow
the general principles laid down.

Church. A church is one large unit but easily handled; make it
incombustible internally and fireproof externally. There are no
goods stored in it or any possibility of internal fire if the structure
itself will not burn.

Assembly Halls. In all theaters, churches, halls, and such
places of public assemblages, there must be ample provision for the
rapid exit of the people, for in the best fireproof building, someone
may inadvertently or involuntarily start a panic. Even though
there be no fire but merely a false alarm, terrible things may happen
in a trampling, unordered mob. Therefore, provide plenty of stairs,
or better still, inclined planes, from every gallery, and if they lead
outside so much the better. The proportion of door-openings, aisles
and all such details will be found in the regula'r text of "Construc-
tion of Buildings" and are also specially laid down in the building
laws of all first-class cities. Under no circumstances should any such
large hall, theater, or church be more than one story above the street.
If it can be built right on the street level with no steps at all, so much
the better.

Hotels. Hotels have to be most carefully studied; new prob-
lems arise in every building planned. But a careful analysis of what
is specifically required in each case and an "application of common
sense" will produce sane solutions for every problem. Remember,
though, that if the provision of large means of escape is necessary
in the theaters and halls and churches, how much more necessary
are they in hotels and apartments where people spend much time

114 FIRE PREVENTION]

asleep. The greater number of hotel fires occur between 10 P. M.
and 6 A. M. Nothing should ever induce one to leave any open-
ing from one story to another, [and easy stairs and elevators should
be provided in what might be called "extravagant" numbers. The
stairs must not be in one place between two stories and somewhere
else between the next two stories, but continuous, a handrail which
one can take hold of and follow down from the attic to the street.

Fig. 60. A Theater Fire, Fortunately, when Unoccupied — Wooden Construction

No detail is too insignificant to deserve study and attention.
For instance, it is deemed a simple enough matter to place a tank
upon a roof, a supply of water for house and sprinkler purposes.
To make such a tank's supports iron instead of wood is also sensible
and a most commendable thing to do. But more is needed. If
those iron supports are not protected from rust, painted from time
to time, they will give way and down will come the tank. That was
the cause of a recent and grave disaster at Montreal. Tanks impro-

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

115

perly built, improperly supported, and otherwise thoughtlessly in-
stalled have, in just ten years' time, done fatal damage, destroying
one or many lives and being the cause also of most serious con-
flagrations, In forty-five instances. Yet, not one out of a hundred
thousand people, people interested in building, too, ever give more
than a passing thought to the proper construction and support of
the tank.

Fig. 61. Building Hollow Tile Walls
The blocks are laid up the same as in ordinary brickwork.

Fireproof Homes. Of all classes of buildings, houses contribute
by far the greatest number to fire.

Every wise woman buildeth her house
a wide house and large chambers, and
cutteth out windows; and it is ceiled
with cedar and painted with vermilion.

You see that even in the time of Jeremiah the women wanted
big rooms and many windows and, undoubtedly, innumerable closets,
cubbyholes, and cosy corners — probably more than some of their
good husbands could well pay for. In a great many respects the
women of those days differed not from those of our own time. In
building a house today the average woman wants just about three
times as many rooms as she can possibly get for the money which
the family has set aside to build the home; however, I will have no

116

FIRE PREVENTION

quarrel with her as to the number of rooms she wants and thinks
she ought to have, where the flagpole ought to be, the particular
location of the kitchen sink, or, for that matter, even the painting
of her house "with vermilion," but I am going to scold about the
"ceiling of that house with cedar."

The Hebrews of old built almost exclusively of wood; even
Solomon built his magnificent temple of cedar and costly timbers,
and as a result we have absolutely nothing in the way of historical
remains of those days. Our fathers, at least those who dwelt in this
country, also built of wood, for the same reason that the Hebrews

Fig. 62. The Rough Tile Work of a Fireproof School Building

did — it was the most available material — and we have clung to that
habit as we -cling to many habits, without rhyme or reason. True,
clapboarding and shingles may be very artistically combined, and
there are indeed some very tasty frame homes wherever we may turn
our eyes. But none of these homes so built are safe. In the hearts
of large cities, and within certain zones outside of those hearts even,
such homes are not permitted, because of the dangerous character
of their construction. In the suburbs they are exposed to the dangers
of fire from within and innumerable dangers from adjacent fires,
though the fire departments in most cities are so well organized that
total loss is far less frequent than formerly. When once a house so

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 117

constructed catches fire there is small hope for it, for few country
places have any semblance of fire protection, and the result is total
loss. Something like 80,000 houses burned down last year in this
country. True, 42,000 of those were insured and the people got some
balm with which to soothe their lacerated purses, but remember that
for every dollar a community gets from the insurance companies it
has paid in to those companies three dollars in premiums.

Men are learning by hard experience the folly of flimsy building.
It is one of the national crimes. Apart from the Chinese and Japanese
few people on earth have built as poorly as we did some years ago —
and many of us still do it when we are not deterred by the law. Busi-
ness men have come to realize the tremendous loss of property that
is chargeable to inferior construction and the result is a general
demand for better buildings, more fireproof construction. Some
cities have advanced far enough along the lines of progress so that
they will not permit any but fireproof construction within rather wide
limits.

But our women still insist on having, wooden houses, with their
more or less elaborate wood trimming inside, wooden porches out-
side, shingle roofs, "ceiled with cedar" in the fullest sense of the word
and made just about as inflammable as it is possible for an in-
genious architect to devise — and our houses, therefore, contribute
very largely to the annual ash heap. I am not contending for merely
the elimination of wood in the exterior finish and construction of
houses. Many people believe that the moment they have their out-
side walls of brick or stone, and the roof of slate or tile, their homes
are fireproof. The floor joists, the partitions, all the interior fram-
ing and finish are of wood and become as dry as tinder in the course
of a few years. The spaces between the rafters, floor joists, and
partition studdings, are just so many flues. No sooner is there a
little fire in the cellar or kitchen or some out-of-the-way corner than
— pst ! there it is in the roof and all over the house. Lives .are endan-
gered and much that the good housewife holds dear is destroyed,
though the house itself may possibly be repaired. On that account
do I aim my bolt at everything that is wood or inflammable or de-
structible by fire in a house.

The exterior walls should be of brick, terra cotta, or concrete —
stone may be used under ordinary circumstances — while the floors

118 FIRE PREVENTION

and partitions and roofs — all the construction, in fact — should be of
absolutely non-inflammable materials. . And all this protection costs
but very little m^re than the flimsy construction. Conditions, of
course, differ in the various parts of the country, but as a general
average I may say that a thoroughly fireproof house will not cost (in
its initial expenditure) more than 7 per cent over the cost of the usual
wooden structure with wooden joists, stud partitions, and lath. Tak-
ing into consideration the fewer repairs required to keep such a house
in condition, its far longer life, the lessened insurance — if, indeed,
any be carried — ultimate investment in a fireproof house is not nearly
as much, anywhere in the country, as that in an ordinary structure.
Many times, in fact, the initial cost of the better mode is even no
greater than that of the poor one. A number of fireproof houses
have just been completed in Pittsburg. They have cost, ready for
occupancy, $4,500 each, and that includes some few little extras that
have been thought of as the building went on. The lowest bids on
those houses for wood construction were $4,000 and $4,125.

Why! anyone can figure it up for himself. In the ordinary city
house the wide span floors, for instance, have 12-inch joists; between
those joists there is laid 12 inches of cinder concrete, or other noise
deafening material, in the endeavor to lessen the noises from over-
head; there is a rough flooring on top, with a finished narrow-strip
maple flooring covering that, and plastering on the under side form-
ing the ceiling of the story below. Now, such a floor and ceiling in
the completed stage cost here in Washington 40 cents a square foot.
There will be a variation of two or three cents in different localities.
Eliminating the maple floor, taking out the deafening, and using a
finished pine floor, as is done in the cheapest kind of dwellings, you
have an expenditure of at least 28 cents a square foot. Partitions
built of 2 by 4 wood stud, wood lathing both sides, and plastered
both sides, will average 20 cents a square foot pretty much all over
the country. So much for wood. In fireproof construction, tile and
concrete spans finished with an asbestolithic or granolithic or other
incombustible plastic flooring, the under side of the floor plastered
and all finished in good shape — fireproof and vermin-proof — cost
from 26 to 28 cents a square foot. You see that the general supposi-
tion that fireproof construction is exceedingly costly is erroneous.

I am not advocating anything startlingly new, nor a great reform

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

119

Floor Second JHfoor

Fig. 63. Plans and Description for House A

HOUSE "A."

These sketches are the rough studies for the plans of a fireproof, $8,000 house In Portland, Ore.
The size of the rooms is marked on each. "A" is the entrance porch — cement floor, concrete steps,
etc. "D" and "C" are the reception hall and library, or living room. "B" is the parlor and "E"
the dining room. These rooms communicate by sliding doors, so that absolute privacy c£.n be
secured In each. "F" Is the kitchen and "G" the pantry. "S" is a fixed icebox, enameled-brick lined,
"T" a coat closet, "V" a little conservatory off the dining room, "W" a back open porch and "X"
a lattice-enclosed porch. People will keep baby carriages, lawn mowers, etc., on a porch, so might
as well give them a place to do it properly. "H" is the stairway. It is an iron' stair, enclosed
in tile partition with self-closing doors, and the sash in the doors, giving light into the ball,
"C," is filled with wired glass. These people are sensible and are willing to forego the delights of
a draughty, dirt-communicating and dangerous in case of fire, but elaborate, open, ornamental
stairway. Thus closed off there is not the slightest possible danger of fire communicating from
story to story. This stairway serves all purposes. There is accesa to it from the pantry •, it alsq
goes on down into the basement. There is a landing at the ground level, sot that the boys may
come in that way and go up to their rooms without tracking dirt all through the house. The
second floor shows bedrooms at "I, J, K, L>" with closets at "M" linen and trunk closets at
"T" and "R," bathroom at "Q" with separate closet — a great convenience — at "N." In the third
floor or attic there are two rooms for boys, a trunk and storage room and servants' quarters, and
la the basement there is a laundry, a furnace room, coalbins and a workshop,

120

FIRE PREVENTION

in building material, nor anything of that sort; but am simply urging
the adoption of as sensible a mode of construction in our houses as
we have gotten into the way of using in our larger buildings. Build-
ing fireproof houses has become as necessary as the building of fire-
proof stores, hotels, apartment-houses and other places of a similar
nature. It is not sensible to keep on building with old flimsy methods

exposing life and property to
the dangers that we know are
ever present, as we have done
in the past from motives of
alleged economy, that have in
reality proven to be the rank-
est extravagance. All that
I am advocating is that the
ladies forego the little pleas-
ure they may derive from
their dainty minarets of shingle,
scroll-saw ornaments, beautiful
green stained shingle sides to
their houses and the endless
wood — wood — wood trimming
and finishing that is simply
pretty be^ luse we have grown
used to it, and allow the substitution in place of all this highly
combustible material, of other materials that will not burn and
that are not damaged if an incipient fire does occur in the house fur-
nishings, carpets, etc. Brick, tile, and concrete are the materials that
fulfil that requirement, and if they are used almost exclusively in the
structural parts of a house, slate, stone, and metal, that are damage-
able by fire, may be used with more or less generosity in decorative
ways because* the possibility of their being damaged is virtually
eliminated by the use of brick and tile construction.

Do not imagine for a moment that the fire-resisting materials are
the unyielding things that you have perhaps heretofore thought them to
be, believing that a wooden house was the only one that could be made
"pretty". The substantial homes are by their very nature far more
beautiful and in the hands of a skilled designer become the most plastic
and responsible medium for the very highest expression of our art.

Fig. 64. Exterior Design for House, by Chicago
Architects, That Would Fit Plans of House A

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

121

Fireproof House Plans. Here is an illustration of a fireproof
house plan; call it "A." This house "A" is to cost not one penny
over $8,000. The sizes of the rooms are indicated on the sketches.
It will be absolutely fireproof in that not one inch of wood will enter
into the construction, but even in such a house there is the possibility
of quite a fire. There is always a mass of furniture, draperies, and
carpets, and until such things are made of steel and woven of asbestos,
incipient fires at least are possible, and very probable, where servants
are negligent in handling fire and where the ubiquitous small boy
loves to play with the matches. The great danger with an incipient
fire in a room is that it will spread and particularly upward if it is
in the lower stories. In a great cotton warehouse, for instance, aU
on one floor, it will take hours and hours for that cotton to be con-
sumed, while the same amount of cotton placed in a five- or six-story
warehouse with stairways and elevators opening in on every floor
will be totally consumed in as many minutes as it will take hours in
the other case. The main tendency of fire is, of course, upward,
and the most potent agent in its spread in a house is the omnipresent,
openwork stairway. So that even in this fireproof house I enclose

the stairway in a fireproof parti-

tion, and the windows opening
from that stairway hall "H" into
the other parts of the house are
of metal sash and wire glass and
the doors opening from the other
rooms are automatically self-
closing, fireproof doors. The
thing is that a person going up or
down stairs has to open a door.
It may be deemed a slight in-
convenience, but some day that
very act may mean the saving of your children's or your own lives.
Even if you still persist in building of wood, you should close off your
stairways so that every floor may be a separate entity and the stair-
way not a means of immediate communication of fire from below.
Apart from the fire question, did you ever stop to think that the
open stairway, while perhaps rather attractive esthetically, adds just
about 15 per cent to your cares, work, and inconvenience? Every

Fig. 65. Exterior Design for House, by

Chicago Architects, That Would Fit

Plans ol House A

122

FIRE PREVENTION

Fig. 66. Plans and Description of House C

HOUSE "C."

Is one of a row of eight houses for Philadelphia. They are 20x75 feef. They will cost about
$7,500 each, will be rather nicely finished, absolutely fireproof in construction and will rent for
about $70 a month. One enters at two steps above tiie street into vestibule "A." To the right
there Is the man's library or smoking room. At "C" is the reception hall, "D" is the stairway,
"H" the kitchen, "F" the pantry and "G" servant's room. The lot falls away to the rear, so
that there is a sub-basement, accessible by stairway "E" and in which will be the heating plant,
laundry, servant's bath, coal, etc. The second floor has double parlors, "N N," on the front, dining
room at "L," serving room- at "F." .The dumb-waiter, "J," serves all the stories In the house,
carrying meals in case of sickness to' the upper stories and convenient for other household purposes.
The partitions; around it are fireproof, and it is closed with an automatically self-closing door
at every story, so that there is no danger of fire communication by that means. The stairs at "D"
are well lighted, but enclosed in a room by themselves and with a self-enclosing door, and offer
no means of communication of fire from story to story. Note how they are placed so as to serve all.
the purposes of the house; no need of back stairs. Note also that at "K" are guides on the
walla and a platform elevator, geared to a block and tackle on the roof and worked by hand-
power. In the hallway on the first' floor and; all the other stories by this freight elevator Is a
window opening, full size, a French sash, and the idea is that in- moving furniture or other heavy
things there is no lugging up and down the stairs. A piano or other bulky piece is carried along
the level from the fron't door, put onto this platform elevator and hoisted up to the story desired
and there carried out on the level without much ado. The third floor has bedrooms at "P, Q"
and "R,"-with closets at "O," "O" and bathroom at "S." "P" or "R" may be used as sitting room
or sewing room, or nursery, for that matter. The fourth floor has four bedrooms "Q, Q, Q, Q,"-
closets at "O" and a bath at "S." The stairs go On up to an attic that can be used for storage
purposes. The space for the freight elevator hoist "K" is so arranged that some time the the owner
will install an electric passenger elevator._ Building a wall at the back will be all the change,
necessary in construction.;

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

123

time you sweep a room in the upper stories you are merely transferring
dirt to your lower stories. The stairway means a draught all winter,
the addition of about 12 per cent to your coal bill, and oftentimes
the addition of a very large percent to your doctor's bills. Besides,
with the open stairway it is impossible to shut off the upper floor
when you have company below. Altogether, I consider the open-
stairway feature one of the r .

worst in our modern house con-
struction — a menace to life,
health, comfort, and peace of
mind. This house "A" is merely
typical, a thousand modifications
of the plans are possible, and,
indeed, any plan of a house may
be easily modified so that the
materials used may be non-com-
bustible, the means of communi-
cation of fire may be eliminated,
and your house may, become a
fireproof one.

In the crowded resident por-
tions of cities, fireproofed houses
are even more necessary than in
the suburbs. Sketches of the floor
plan of house "C" are studies
made of a row of eight houses in
Philadelphia. The construction
will be absolutely fireproof, the
stairs enclosed, well lighted, and Fig> G7. A Suitablo Exteriol for House c
furnished with automatic doors in

fireproof partitions between stairs and halls. Usually, with front and
back stairs, a little over one-fifth of the available floor space is thrown
to stair room. By a rather ingenious arrangement it will be observed
that in this house, as in house "A," the one stairway is made to serve
all purposes and can be made so, not only conveniently, but with
absolute satisfaction, eliminating the necessity for servants passing
through living rooms to get to the stairway, as is unavoidable ordi-
narily where but the one stairway is used. All the windows in the

124

FIRE PREVENTION

• Fcret Floor. • Second Floor

Fig. 68. Plans and Description of House B

covers a lot 25 feet front, 100 feet deep, backing on an alley. Some light is obtained
In the upper stories on the left of the plan by having windows in the party wall above the adjoining
residence, while on Ihe right there is a very fine residence shown on the ground-floor plan at "P,"
with an automobile house in the rear at "O." The arrangement of this adjacent house is such as to
permit of very, good lighting of this new residence on that side, and arrangements have been made
with the owner so that the conservatory on the first floor at "S" overlaps the lot and is attached
to the other man's wall where there are no windows. The ground-floor plan shows the entrance
at "A," Mr. H.'s library and office at "B," reception room at "C,"' hallway at "E," coat closet at
"F," passenger elevator at "D," kitchen at "L," dumb-waiter a't "K" and closed stair at "J," wine
room At "M" and a room at "I" that is use,d ordinarily for the servants' dining room, but on ex-
traordinary occasions as a gentlemen's dressing room, while room "H" is used ordinarily for Mr.
H.'s stenographers, and, in extraordinary cases, as a ladies' coat and dressing room. "G G" are
toilet rooms off of these rooms. First-floor plan shows the. grand drawing room at "T" and the
dining room at "K," conservatory at "S," serving room at "L" and breakfast room at "Q." Elevator
at "D" and stairway at "J." Some indication of the ceiling treatment is shown on plan. Second
flppr shows family sitting room lined with bookshelves at "X," Mrs. H.'s sewing and writing room

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

125

Third Floor •

PI/AN S OF HOUSE "B"

Fig. 69. Plans and Description of House B

at "W," day nursery at "U," with the two young gentlemen's rooms at "VV" and bathroom at
•*G," with shower, etc. Third-floor plan shows Mrs. H.'s bedroom at "V-6," Mr. H.'s at "V-5," with
private bathroom at "G," shower, etc., nursery room for baby twin boys at "V," nurses' room at
•;V-2" and rooms for two little girls at "V-3-4," closets at "F," bathrooms at "G," elevator "D,"
dumb-waiter "K" and stairs at "J." Fourth floor shews the young lady's room at "V-10," with private
bathroom "G," guest chambers at "Y-7-8-9," billiard room at "Y." Fifth-floor plan shows housekeep-
er's and butler's rooms at "V'll-.12," bathroom at "G." "Z-Z" ordinarily gymnasium, but also used as
ballroom. "G-2" is a plunge and shower bath. Tb.e stairs, dumb-waiter and passenger eleva'tor are
not only enclosed in fireproof partitions, but also have automatically self-closing doors, BO that there
is no possibility of fire communicating from story to story. Plus all this, Mr. H., who has been burned
out three times in his life, .has a fire escape at "N." All the windows at the sides and" back of the
bouse are of metal sash with wire glass, and apart from the furniture In the house there is abso-
lutely nething in the construction that is combustible. The exterior shows a very plain, but rather
impressive front, not overornaraented, and a house that carries the idea of solid dignity and repose
jra.ther than any ostentatious display of wealth.'

126

FIRE PREVENTION

light courts that, as will be observed on the third-floor plan, are large
and sightly, are of metal sash and wire glass, and every precaution
is taken to avoid possible fire damage from within or from with-
out. The dumb-waiter is arranged with automatic doors, as are

all other openings through the
floors. Any one of the three ex-
teriors shown would fit such a
plan.

House "B" is of a class
that many may be interested in,
but that, unfortunately, few are
able to build. It is the resi-
dence (for the winter months)
of Mr. H., a wealthy man, who
spends only a few months at
the height of the season in
Washington, and who intends
this house not only as a home
during these periods, but as a
place of very sumptuous enter-
taining. He has been burned
out of house and home three
times in his life, so that he was
an easy convert to fireproof con-
struction. More than that, he
has given the subject some
study, under proper direction,
and has become an enthusiast
on the subject. The sketches

Fig. 70. Exterior of House B J

for the plans and exterior are

but the first rough studies and are, therefore, susceptible to some,
though not many, modifications. I believe I am safe in saying that
the house, when completed next year, will be the nearest absolutely
fireproof residence that has yet been constructed in the country.
Not only are the constructive features to be fireproof, but the fin-
ished floors are to be of asbestolithic cement, marble mosaic, and
other such materials; the window sashes are all to be of metal with
the glass on the sides and the rear of the house wired, and the door

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

127

casings, etc., will be moulded and ornamented in Keene's cement,
with the doors themselves of pressed metal. There will not be $50
worth of woodwork in this entire house which I estimate will cost
somewhere about $60,000, exclusive of certain luxuries demanded
by the owner. The exterior of the house, as will be noticed, is almost
severely plain, a feature which is in much better taste than the usual
over-ornamentation. Many special features of interest will be noted

Fig. 71. A Tile Fireproof House, Roof, Walls, Floors and All of Hollow Tile

in the general arrangement of this house. Some may wonder at the
absence of grand monumental stairways. That is a detail which
is absolutely eliminated. There is a passenger elevator, arranged
in fireproof partitions and with automatic fire doors, that serves
every floor. It will be electrically operated so as to stop at any
desired floor by merely touching the electric button, and the doors
cannot be opened by anyone while it is in operation. There is not
half as much danger of accident in such an elevator as there is in a

128 FIRE PREVENTION

stairway. At the rear of the house there is a very handsome, fire-
proof staircase for general purposes and to be used in case of acci-
dent to the elevator, which is somewhat remote, as connections are
made with two powers.

Incidentally, I contend that anyone building a house, a city
house, of more than three stories, costing over $10,000, is not for-
givable if he or she does not install an elevator instead of a stair-
way. Electric elevators are now being made with simple machinery,
take little space, are absolutely safe, are easy of operation, and cost but
comparatively little for installation. The house elevator is a thing
that is near at hand and ten years from now elevators, even in houses
of two stories, will be as common as electric street cars are today.

Houses are now being built of tile stuccoed externally, a simple
inexpensive construction and one doing away altogether with a
steel frame of any kind. And they are building houses of tile and
concrete centering; of concrete in forms; of concrete sections made
in shops, and of concrete blocks. Beautiful houses can be designed
in any one of these modes of construction, though I have not yet
seen a concrete block house I would care to live in. Personally I
prefer the tile house for lightness of material, temperature, resistance,
soundproofness, dryness, and ease of construction.

How strange it is that a man should go to such trouble, expense,
and employment of skill in order to have his shop or store or office
building fireproof and yet be willing to live and have his family and
probably his most valuable possessions, in almost any kind of a house,
however much of a tinder box it may be. The fireproof house is as
important as the fireproof bank or store or factory, if not more so,
and the more people who live in that house, the more perfectly fire-
proof it should be. Therefore, the hospital, the hotel, the apart-
ment, the asylum, and the college dormitory should be superlatively
well built.

It has been stated that "slow-burning," "mill construction,"
"semi-fireproof," and all those half measures were unavailing and
misnomers. Insofar as a conflagration is concerned it amounts
to nothing, for those buildings disappear in almost as quick order
as do the frankly fire-trap ones. But there is this one advantage,
viz, that an internal fire is retarded enough so that escape is perhaps
possible and, of course, the more fire-resisting the construction is,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

129

the better it is for the occupants. But half-way measures in any
phase of life are so unsatisfactory. You spend almost as much for

Fig. 72. "Slow-Burning" or "Mill Construction" After a Hot Fire, Utter Wreck

"semi" fireproof construction as for the real thing and if fire does
occur and gets pretty hot, your contents are destroyed and your
building is damaged 60 to 90 per cent of its cost value — the loss might

132 FIRE PREVENTION

as well be total for you shall certainly tear down what is standing
and do it over again properly if you are wise.

Although compromises are unsatisfactory, there may be circum-
stances where and when it is really impossible to build in a thor-
oughly fireproof manner. Suppose even that the usual frame house
is the only thing possible, you can still, by the exercise of a little
ingenuity, make it so that there is a chance of getting out in case of
fire and of even retarding that fire so that it may be extinguished
before it goes too far. Offer as little chance for ignition as
possible in places where merely dropping a match means a sure fire
— in fuzzy, woolly floor coverings for instance. Theif cut off the
structural air spaces and flues, that so readily and quickly convey
fire all about the house. Between the joists set boards on edge,
boards the exact size of that joist space instead of the usual cross-
bridging, and lay a course of brick or concrete or asbestos at each
floor line between all the studding timbers, so that the flue spaces
between studding are only one-story high instead of being continuous
from cellar to roof. All such carefully thought-out details will be
mild retardants, but can hardly be called "fireproofing." If we
accept the best lexicographic definition, a building to be fireproof
must be proof against fire. Something that merely postpones the
end, defers the destruction, is certainly not making a building in-
vulnerable.

Building Code. From a fire prevention standpoint it is natural
that in a model Building Code we should exact absolutely fireproof
construction in all buildings. But, though enthusiasts, the Society of
Building Commissioners do lay claim to the possession of some sense
and we realize that such a requirement would simply scare into pos-
itive inaction every city in which we would suggest it. Discretion
therefore prompts us to modify these exactions, to temper them so that
there will be some hope of their being adopted. We have been care-
ful to ask for nothing but what one or more cities already exact. No
city cares to be a pioneer in any reform; its first question always is
"What other cities are doing what you ask us to do?" and with this
code we can truthfully say that six are doing nearly all that we have
asked and twenty others are doing much that was suggested, having
rebelled on some requirements only, and in each case different re-
quirements, so that no one regulation has been unanimously rejected.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 133

Here is an editorial from the "American Architect" of a recent
date. It echoes the sentiment that now seems to obtain throughout
the country:

A strong sentiment in favor of improved laws governing the erection
and maintenance of buildings is manifested in widely distant localities. New
building codes are being formulated in such cities as Rochester and Syracuse,
N. Y., and in Portland, Ore., one has just been adopted. This document,
patterned largely after that of Cleveland, Ohio, is interesting as showing
people in older and more settled sections of the country what has been accom-
plished in the Northwest in the way of substantial development. The need
for the strictest supervision over structural, fireproof , and sanitary arrange-
ments is the surest sign of civic growth. The provision in the Portland code
for two grades of fire limits — that is, areas in which the law will permit the
erection of only fireproof and semi-fireproof structures respectively — is inter-
esting and should be more widely applied in some of our large eastern cities,
which will permit the erection of the flimsiest and most inflammable structures
in the immediate proximity to the fireproof zone, thus affording a real passage to
a conflagration sufficiently intense to force its way through openings in the walls.

A community that will lend its united support to a provision of this
kind, carrying with it a large increase in the cost of buildings not of the first
importance, deserves to be congratulated on its far-sightedness. If these
large cities that have a very considerable population dwelling in the neighbor-
hoods of business sections could be aroused to the true state of affairs, they
too might be induced to pass similar protective restrictions. Every now and
then a disastrous fire claims victims living in a section charted as extra-hazard-
ous by the insurance companies. A restriction classifying the construction
requirements according to environment, as well as according to a building's
use, would operate to bring about naturally that classification of buildings so
helpful for better conditions in our cities in every way. We hold this out as
a suggestion to the commission that will take up the further revision of build-
ing codes, especially in the city of New York, where -conditions are, perhaps,
as unsatisfactory as in any large city.

In connection with the matter of a building code, it must also be
remembered that as we have observed, the insurance companies
exact such construction only as will best protect their interests in
your building. There are a number of things upon which you may
lose that do not concern them; it is your business. Their care of
your interests for your sake is quite incidental and chiefly conspicuous
by its absence. It is purely a business proposition. So with a build-
ing code. In it we are chiefly concerned in the community's welfare,
its protection from conflagration, the prevention of spreading fire.
The individual's interest goes way beyond that. For instance, we
prescribe just how a wall should be built so as to keep it from falling
down and hurting people and to stand as a secure barrier against

134

FIRE PREVENTION

fire's exit or entry. But we are not concerned as to how that wall
shall be plastered and decorated. The code may direct the minimum
excellence of such work, bat it is a trivial detail, one that will neither

"» c

B g
PC u

keep the wall up or make it much more fire-resisting. The decoration
may burn off and the community will not suffer the loss ; that is your
loss, your affair.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

135

Now then, how very unwise it is to build only as well in all details
as the city compels or as the insurance companies exact. Neither
is particularly interested in your business or the especial safety of
your property save as a very small unit of a big whole. These require-
ments should be considered as the very minimum of excellence, your
own interest should dictate and your sense appreciate that a building
should be better in all its details than is absolutely demanded.

Fig. 76. Building the Floors of a Modern Skyscraper

In traveling only the railway fare is obligatory, the sleeping
car, dining car, and other luxuries are optional and extra. But how
much they contribute to your comfort and safety! Well, so with a
building code. It exacts only that which is most essential and to not
do more than it exacts, wherever this is possible, is like refraining
from sleeping and eating while traveling because of some foolish
notion that the flat railway fare is all that should be expended for
travel.

Along with fireproof and fire-retarding construction must go
carefulness and a sufficient water supply to assure one that noth-

136 FIRE PREVENTION

ing like a hot fire can occur. Every building should be complete-
ly equipped with hose, the best extinguishers available, standpipes,
individual tanks and pumps if there is any question about gen-
eral supply and sprinkler systems. These individual tanks have to be
carefully attended to, also. They must be properly supported upon
continuous columns or other sufficient foundation and not planted
down anywhere upon the roof. Time and again have wooden or
other insufficient supports under such tanks given away arid pre-
cipitated these great tanks through the roof and several stories,
doing terrific damage and often causing disastrous fires and loss of
life. Strange how the upsetting of a water tank could set fire to a
building ! But it is so in nearly every accident to a building — an earth-
quake, anything — fire is generally the finale. Buildings are so poorly
built and so inflammable that any disarrangement disturbs a flue,
or places wood near a light or something or other that can only
result in — fire. Begin the trouble anyway and it is more than apt to
terminate in smoke! The more precautions taken the greater the
safety. Watchmen and automatic alarms help in that direction.
And the training of one's employes or family in fire drills is but sen-
sible, drills not only in getting out of a building but in doing the
right thing at the right time to choke a fire in its incipiency, or to
fight it successfully if it has gathered headway. Children and
teachers in schools, nurses and employes in hospitals, clerks and
janitors in stores, every one should have his appointed place and
work in case of fire and be drilled so often and well that when the
emergency arrives he will do what he ought to do quite as a matter
of habit. It is the compulsory drills on board ship and the con-
stant watchfulness that make ship-fires so comparatively few.

STANDARD TESTS OF BUILDING MATERIALS

One of the last appropriations made by Congress in 1910 was
a liberal sum with which the National Bureau of Standards might
begin a series of comprehensive and exhaustive tests of building
materials. It was a timely appropriation and the Bureau selected
to do the work is the logical one for that purpose, the idea being
to standardize weights, measures, materials; in fine, to create standard
American standards. Heretofore there has been some work done
by the government in the way of testing for fire resistance, strength,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 137

etc., the materials used in government construction, but it has been
more or less haphazard and scattered; as it had been done by a dozen
different divisions, it lacked direction and unity of purpose, and
consequently was of comparatively little value. The Bureau of
Standards, under the splendid direction of Dr. S. W Stratton (form-
erly of the University of Chicago), with the perfected equipment he
has given it and the enthusiastic and able corps of skilled chemists,
physicists and engineers he has gathered about him, cannot fail to
give us magnificent results, established facts, standards to work to
in the way of fire-resistance in construction, that will be of inestimable
value to the building interests and to the country generally.

The following paper by James E. Howard, engineer, physicist
of that Bureau, describes one of the first series of heat tests of build-
ing materials made under the new order. It is interesting and ger-
mane to the subject we are considering:

The necessity for acquiring exact knowledge upon the action of heat on
building materials as a basis for judging of the manner in which losses or injury
may be averted, or the effects of such a destructive agency as heat minimized,
will be taken as a matter quite evident to all. But to obtain this information
there is involved a large amount of laboratory work as well as the collation of
data through most careful observation of fires and their effects.

It is recognized that heat is capable of destroying the integrity of any
and all structures, but that each of the materials of construction is capable of
enduring in some degree exposure to high temperatures, and that a study of
their physical properties under conditions which may be encountered is essen-
tially the foundation on which intelligent efforts for the prevention of fire
losses must rest.

The first manifestation which is noticed when a rise of temperature
occurs is the expansion or increase in volume of the material. Simultaneously
therewith the strength and certain other properties may undergo a modifica-
tion, at first apparent only through critical examination, but eventually as
higher temperatures are reached, the effects become menacing and finally
destructive. Chemical as well as physical changes occur in some of the
materials of construction.

Not only is a high temperature menacing but the rate of change is also
detrimental to some classes of materials. Not so perhaps if the temperature
of the entire mass changed rapidly, but with low conductivity and a friable
nature, injury may result from internal strains. Furthermore the proper dis-
tribution of stresses in a structure may be so disturbed by reason of parts
thereof being heated that cases of overloading may occur, even to the limit of
failure.

In any change toward high temperature there is, in fact, a tendency in
the direction of ultimate injury, although a moderate change is of no particular
account. But what constitutes a moderate change is nevertheless different

138 FIRE PREVENTION

in one class of structures over another. Changes in temperature unnoticed
in a building must be provided for in a bridge, therefore an unqualified state-
ment on the subject is difficult to make.

A property of materials similar to that of expansion or contraction by
changes in temperature is that of extension or compression by reason of changes
in load. This rate of change, or in other words the modulus of elasticity, pre-
sents a wider range in values in different structural material than the coefficients
of expansion by heat. So far as is known, however, these two values bear no
relation in common to each other.

As temperatures increase the metal portions might at times be the first
to undergo a change in strength and rigidity, assuming those portions were
accessible to the flames. But again the rate of change may be the controlling
factor, and it becomes necessary to assume that slow heating occurred, a
condition not often realized in a conflagration.

Before the ultimate strength of any part of a structure is reached there
may have been so decided a modification in the distribution of the loads by
reason of the successive changes which have prevailed that the final appear-
ance is not necessarily indexical of the primary cause of failure. So many
reservations are necessary to tie in any general statement that further remarks
of this kind will be suspended and a number of diagrams presented on which
are shown features on the physical properties of structural materials which
have a bearing upon the subject.

Fig. 77 shows the relative rigidity of structural materials. Steel has
the highest modulus of elasticity of any of the materials used and its rela-
tive rigidity is indicated in the open space above the full line at the left-
hand side of the diagram. The several open lines above each of the solid
ones represent in turn the relative extensibility or compressibility of the
materials named on the diagram, based upon their respective moduli of elas-
ticity. These values pertain to the materials when stressed by comparatively
low loads, or within their elastic limits.

Two values are given for cast iron, and two for each of several other
kinds of material, while for brick three are shown, representing hard, light
hard, and salmon brick. In the case of long leaf pine the difference usually
found between the tops and the butts of the trees is indicated by the two
open lines of the diagram.

The significance of the lines on the diagram is this: if each of the materials
represented thereon were loaded by compression with the same load per
square inch of sectional area, then their shortening in height would take place
relatively as here indicated for columns originally all of the same height. That
is, a load applied to a steel column of such a height that its total compression
would amount to 1 inch, and such a column of steel need only be 80 to 90 feet
high, then the same load applied to a cast-iron column would shorten it from
If inch to 2 inches. To carry this comparison to the other materials a lower
stress per square inch would need to be considered than contemplated in the
case of steel and cast iron.

But on a suitable basis of comparison the load which would shorten
a steel column a given amount would shorten a monolithic column of hard
brick three times as much, and if made of salmon brick, sixty times as much.
Neat Portland cement is seven and one-half times as compressible as steel;

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

139

sandstone from seven and one-half times to twenty-five times as compressible,
and so on for the other materials as indicated on the diagram.

It must not be forgotten, however, that the results on the diagram
refer to the compression of the materials within their elastic limits. It is
quite a different matter when considering overloads which cause permanent
sets.

Fig. 78 shows the curves of tensile strength of three grades of steel
when at different temperatures. Over the range of atmospheric temperatures

i ?

u ^o ^

I 1

Fig. 77. The Relative Rigidity of Structural Materials

steels are strongest when cold, at 0° F. At lower artificial temperatures the
strength is greater still. At about the temperature of boiling water the strength
reaches a first minimum after which it increases to the crest at a zone in the
vicinity of 400° to 600° F., after which there is a steady drop until the metal
becomes plastic, at a bright red or yellow heat.

It appears from the best evidence available that the curves of elastic
limits would not follow those of tensile strength, but show a gradual drop
throughout as the temperature rises.

Fig. 79 shows the predicted expansive force which would be developed
by confined materials when the temperature is raised. The figures on the
diagram are based on the moduli of elasticity and the coefficients of expansion
of the materials. A range in temperature of 160° F. was used, since this change
in temperature will cause an expansion in a steel bar equal in amount to the
extension which it will display under a stress of 30,000 pounds per square
inch, that is, equal to the extension of a piece of mild steel at its elastic limit.

140

FIRE PREVENTION

Steel pre-eminently leads in many of the physical constants and as here com-
pared has a value quite beyond the other materials of construction.

The harder varieties of stone appear capable of developing an expansive
force considerably above the softer stones of the same kind, which is due chiefly
to the differences in their rates of compressibility under stresses.

Three predicted values are given for brick, to represent the behavior
of hard, light hard and salmon brick. The very low value for salmon brick
is significant. No results are presented on fire brick, but their properties
resemble the underburnt building brick in that fire brick are quite compres-
sible. They successfully resist the effects of heat, in part, because of the
readiness with which they are compressed. Conversely, fire brick would not
be expected to display a high expansive force when confined.

Lime mortar is very compressible and makes a good cushion in a wall
for the stronger brick to act upon when heated. These expansive forces must
be guarded against or may be neglected according to the kind of material or

ZOO *f-OO 6OO 3OO /OOO /ZOO /4-OO /6OO

TEMP. F.

Fig. 78. Diagiam Showing Tensile Strength of Steel at Different Temperatures

its position in the structure. It will be noted that the range in temperature
here considered, only 160° F., is an exceeding!}' limited one; if, however, these
predicted values are approximately reached the gravity of thermal changes
in causing disrupting forces may be realized.

Fig. 80 shows the relative expansion of a number of building stones
after exposure to a temperature of about 400° to 440° F. The open lines
of the diagram indicate the approximate expansion of the stones when heated,
while the portions showing full lines represent the permanent expansion which
remained after they had returned to the initial temperatures. It will be seen
from the results plotted on this diagram that stones when even moderately
heated do not return exactly to their primitive dimensions, but retain as a
permanent set some of the expansion which they acquired when hot. These
permanent sets are comparatively small, amounting to but a few thousandths
or ten-thousandths of the length of the sample, but, nevertheless, from the
persistence with which they appeared in each case, are believed to be there.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 141*

If so they mean some change in situ the significance of which has not yet
been explored. The change is taken to be a disrupting one, in its kind. It
will be noticed that the permanent expansion of the marbles much exceeds
that of the dolomites and that of the other stones represented.

Fig. 81 shows the loss in water and in carbon-dioxide of samples
of ground hydrated cements. One Portland and two natural cements are
represented, also a composite cement, silica brand, made of one part Port-
land cement and one and a half parts of crushed limestone. It is of interest
to note that water of combination was successively driven off in this hydrated
material as the temperature was raised from 230° F. to redness. This would
seem to indicate a want of stability in the chemical state of the hydrated
cement, or a state in which the equilibrium is disturbed at comparatively
low temperatures. Hygroscopic water was driven off by initially heating the

STEEL

30.000 POl/f/ffS PER SQ. //X

••••••mBOmB^snHBi /7,ooo POUM?S PER SQ. ///.

••••••••nHnH&BQ '3590 pot/ms PER so. /N.

3.ZOO POl/WS PER SQ. ///.
PER -5Q. IN.

MARBLE R 3Q //y

SLATE MHn^^HHHHHBBSSEni '3,430 PO VMS PER sq. //Y.

3.ZOO POVffffS PER 30. ///

<t96O POUrtDS PER -SQ. /N.

BR/CKS MOB z,zzo POV/Y&S PER SQ. /n.

I /cV<9 POM0S PER -5Q. ///'

"EATCE(MErtT'™ •••• ^ 7/(? ^«%W ^/? J<?. ///

Fig. 79. Diagram Showing Relative Expansive Force of Confined Structural Materials
when Temperature is Raised 160° F. Approximate, Predicted Values

material at 10° C. above the boiling point. The large per cent of carbon-
dioxide driven off the silica brand of cement was due to the limestone used
in its composition-

In this connection it may be remarked that cubes of neat Portland
cement which were exposed to a temperature of 1000° F., within a short time
thereafter gradually displayed cracks and eventually broke up into small
fragments. The heating was done slowly, consuming one hour in raising the
temperature, maintaining the maximum temperature for a period of one hour
and then cooling the cubes in dry powdered asbestos. This careful treatment
was adopted so as to avoid destructive internal strains by sudden changes of
temperature, the object of the test being to determine the effect of exposure
to successively increasing temperatures without endangering the integrity
of the cement by violent thermal changes.

Fig. 82 shows the results of some temperature observations taken at
the center of sticks of Douglas Fir wood, which were exposed over a wood fire
for periods of two and one-half hours for each stick. One stick was quenched

142

FIRE PREVENTION

with water at the end of this period of time, another was smothered with sand
and ashes, while the third stick was taken from the fire without quenching.
The sticks originally were 10 inches square by 4 feet long. There was a
hole bored at the center for a depth of 2 feet and a thermometer inserted
in this hole indicated the temperatures which are plotted on the diagram.

It will be noted that no substantial rise in temperature was felt at the
center of the sticks during the first hour over the fire. After this there was a
rapid rise, which continued for some time after the sticks had been quenched
or withdrawn from the fire. The temperature of the fire was estimated to be
1380° F. The sticks were burned until they were from 6 to 7 inches square.

Compression tests made on the
wood after scraping off the charred
portions showed the unburnt portions
to have retained their strength unim-
paired. In fact the thorough drying of
the core was to its advantage appar-
ently since the compressive strength
of the central portions gave results
above the average for this kind of
wood. Some long leaf pine posts,
charred by a fire which occurred in
the upper story of a building, also
displayed compressive strength equal
to, and in some sticks above, others
from the same building which had not
been charred by fire.

Fig. 83 shows other sticks of
Douglas Fir wood which were exposed
over a wood fire in the same man-
ner as those the results of which were
plotted on the previous diagram.
The treatment was varied; those rep-

Fig.,80. DiagramShowing Relative Permanent resented on the present diagram had

alternate periods over the fire. One
stick was quenched with water after
having been over the fire for one

and three-quarters hours and immediately returned to the fire, which opera-
tion was repeated five times; after the sixth quenching it was cooled in the
air. The other stick was exposed to the fire alternate hours for three hours,
then taken from the fire and smothered.

Fig. 84 shows the compressive strength of a group of columns of
different kinds of structural materials. The compressive strength of steel
columns is given at 30,000 pounds per square inch, an ordinary strength for
structural steel. It may vary from this according to the grade of steel used,
lower or higher according to the elastic limit of the metal, and modified by the
workmanship.

The compressive strength of cast-iron columns has been found in the
vicinity of 30,000 pounds per square inch also. This metal occasionally gives
higher results and at times lower. The uncertainty of having an unsound
casting is a source of trouble and detracts from the reliability of cast iron.

6RAWTE

MARBLE

POLOMfTE

L /ME 3 TO/YE

3 LATE,

SA/W3TOME

Expansion of Different Building Stones

After Heating to a Temperature of

About 400° to 440° F.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

143

PORTLAND CEMENTS

23O 332

TEMP F:

57Z

7fZ

KATUfiAL CEMENTS

932

L GO;,

74- COz

////e

REDNESS

932

///Z

N.&R.

OBEL/SK COZ

Fig. 81. Loss in Water anl Carbon-Dioxide of Ciound Ilydrated Cements when
Heated to Different Temperatures

T/ME
Fig. 82. Heat Conductivity of Douglas Fir Sticks — 10 in. X10 in. X4 feet

144

FIRE PREVENTION

The strength of individual brick greatly exceeds that of brick when laid
in piers. This is due largely to the grade of mortar employed. Hard burnt
brick frequently ranges in strength from 15,000 to 20,000 pounds per square
inch when tested singly and an exceptional shale brick was found to possess
the phenomenal strength of 38,000 pounds per square inch.

In piers, however, a compressive strength of 3,000 pounds is a very
strong one, although when a hard brick is laid in neat cement, a resistance of
between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds may be displayed. The same grade of brick
laid in lime mortar will develop only about 1,500 pounds per square inch
ultimate strength. Light hard brick shows less difference in strength whether
laid in neat cement or in lime mortar. It develops lower strength than the
harder brick and being nearer the strength of the lime mortar the cushioning
of the mortar is more favorable relatively. Provided the stronger brick could
be laid in mortar having nearer the characteristics of the brick, then a much
higher strength might reasonably be expected. Sand lime brick ranges in
strength from 1,500 to 3,000 or 4,000 pounds.

240
ZZO
200
/80
/60

k) /OO
K

8O
QO

WO. 8

Qi/EM WED

ALTERS

TEW

T/ME HOURS.
Fig. 83. Heat Conductivity of Douglas Fir Sticks— 10 in. X10 in. X4 feet

The strength of mortar composed of Portland cement depends upon
the richness of the mixture. The diagram illustrates the range which may
be expected in mortars from a one and one mixture to a mixture containing
one part Portland cement to five parts of sand. The rigidity of these mortars
is approximately in proportion to their strength. The strength of concretes
follows about the same as that of the cement mortars. The addition of the
stone has been found not to modify the ultimate strength over wide ranges.
Some examples have shown a slight loss in strength of the concrete over that
of the mortar used without the stone, and illustrations of the opposite kind
may also be found.

Occasional sticks of long leaf pine are founcL which develop the maximum
strength plotted on the diagram, but a common. strength is in the vicinity of
4,000 pounds per square inch, while 3,000 pounds is an ordinary value for
short leaf pine. Douglas Fir has generally a compressive strength of about
4,000 pounds per square inch. These values are such as may be found, but

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

145

the wide range in ultimate strength which is displayed by structural materials
makes it necessary to consider specifically the properties of those materials
which are actually to be used when judging of the strength of any particular
structure.

RETARDING FIRES

On erecting a new building it is senseless to do the thing half-way.
There is but one really sensible way of doing and that is to build
properly. But we are confronted with the fact that there are mil-
lions of old buildings still with us, firebreeders, conflagration starters
and feeders. They are being torn down, burnt, replaced with new;

8000

6OOO

4OOC

zooo

Fig. 84. Compressive Strength of Columns of Different Structural Materials

true, but still millions of them will remain with us for yet many
a year. Some are important, expensive buildings, it is doubtful if
their owners would ever deliberately tear them down, while they
might be perfectly willing and anxious to do all they could to make
them less dangerous, less burnable.

Upon the assumption that "every little helps," — and it does
unquestionably — there are many things which can be done to a build-
ing which will retard fire and which in themselves are not over-costly

146 FIRE PREVENTION

or hard to install. Study out where fire is most apt to originate and
there take extra precautions to nullify that possibility. For in-
stance, in the boiler room, which may be only a basement .and not
adapted for the purpose, put in a brick wall dividing it from the rest
of the basement, suspend a wire lath and plaster ceiling below the wood
joists and vent the space between the two, or suspend tile below
those joists or even tin that ceiling, or better still fasten on a lining
of asbestos-sheeting. In any other room where fire is most apt to
start get a suspended plaster ceiling up, well away from the present
ceiling, or put on an ornamental metal ceiling. See to the outside
openings, get metal sash and wire glass into exposed windows and
skylights, and put fire doors where needed. Look to the roof; if it is
shingle get on something better, asbestos shingle, or metal. Rip out
the old wooden stair at any cost and get in an enclosed fireproof
stairway direct to the street. We placed emphasis upon a good
stairway in a fireproof building, and surely such a stair is needed
still more in this old building. Affix fire-escapes at accessible points,
or provide portable ladder fire-escapes that may be dropped from
any window — a most serviceable and commendable escape that
should be in every corridor if not in every room of a hotel, factory, or
other such building, and one in every home. Study out the purpose
of that building and its potential fire risk and cut it up into units
as much as possible; even a wooden door is better than a clear run-
way for fire. Keep in mind what a perfect fireproof building
ought to be and then get this old building into a condition as near
fire-resisting as possible. Nothing can save that building in a con-
flagration if fire can get into it; but you may be able to do so much
to it externally as to even make it invulnerable to that attack. The
external protection — given faiily good brick walls and other than a
shingle roof — is the easiest and most simple thing to do with the whole
problem. And internally the one great object ought to be to restrict
fire to some one space, to retard it, to offer it as little igniting fuel as
possible, so as to afford an opportunity to the fire department or
the people in the building to get to work and control that blaze.

Even a fireproof (?) paint of reputable make is of some little
value. Anything that will coat the surface of wood so that it will
ignite less quickly than bare, or oiled, or painted wood is commend-
able. Remember, though, that nothing can proof wood, the wild

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

147

148

FIRE PREVENTION

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 149

advertising of certain companies and the approval of certain govern-
ment " experts" to the contrary notwithstanding. A few years ago
there was a veritable craze for "fireproof" wood — it simply shows
the power of reiterated and attractive advertising — wood that had
been put through some chemical process, the sap expelled and the
pores or texture impregnated with saline or other chemicals. It
was supposed to make it as incombustible as metal. It did retard
ignition but if exposed a w^hile to a blaze it soon went the way of all
vegetable growth, into smoke and ashes. But all those things uill
and do retard fire's progress a little. Sometimes a minute even is
all that stands between salvation and destruction. Therefore, it
behooves us to gain that minute by applying the "retardants" where
nothing better can be done.

And finally, much of the advice previously given simmers
down to a plea in behalf of a something, not essentially a building
material either, but something very necesssary in building fireproof
buildings — good common sense. We can say, do thus and so, but in
that and all else you must finally resort to that common sense. No
prescription blindly followed, is all-sufficient; you must mix it well
and stir it with that aforesaid common sense and take it in very
large doses. Do not do this and that because John Smith did it.
Study why he did it and what was actually the result, and if what
he attempted was really accomplished, or if he was but playing
with a theory. Ask yourself whether the proposed building may
ever be exposed to a conflagration, what its chief internal dangers
will be, how it may be jeopardized by its neighbors, get your
problem well in mind. Study all you can find written upon fire.
Study fire; examine buildings after a fire; note the difficulties there
were in extinguishing that fire, for instance, that the deep beams and
girders in the ceilings deflected the water and allowed the fire to burn
with greater fierceness back in the room; study the tests made by the
underwriters, the city building departments, manufacturers; collect
everything you can about fire, and with avidity, reason out the whys
and wherefores in all these points and digest them; and when a prob-
lem in fireproofing presents itself, apply what you have heard, along
with a large proportion of common sense, and that problem, however
involved and difficult it may at first appear, will be as simple to you
as 2 + 2 = 4.

SHARPIES BUILDING, CHICAGO, UNDER CONSTRUCTION
William D, Mann, Architect; T. L. Condron, Engineer

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

PART IV

*CONCRETE FROM THE FIRE-RESISTING
STANDPOINT

It is of the greatest importance to learn as much as possible about
the permanence of materials that are to be used in building con-
struction before incorporating them into structures intended to be
practically permanent in character. There are many destructive
agencies at work all of the time that reduce the strength and impair
the life of structures. Decay and rust, for example, are constantly
at work, effecting the most serious depreciation in buildings, and,
while stone masonry does not decay nor rust, it does disintegrate
when exposed to the action of rain and frost. Frequently stone
used in the fronts of buildings cracks and crumbles to such an extent
as to make it necessary to tear it down, as was the case with the
Post Office and Court House buildings in Chicago a few years ago.

Concrete as a Building Material. Portland cement concrete is an
artificial stone, consisting of broken stone, gravel, and sand, and other
inert materials of varying sizes, mixed with Portland cement and
water in such proportions that the mixture will set or harden into
a compact mass. If the aggregates used are properly graded as to
sizes and well mixed with sufficient cement to thoroughly bind
them together the resulting concrete will be very dense and hard
and will become harder and stronger with age.

Reinforced Concrete. Reinforced concrete is made by incor-
porating steel in the form of wires, bars, or expanded metal in the
concrete to resist tension stresses. This forms a building material
that has the best characteristics of both stone and steel and is superior
to either of these because it will not be affected by the disintegrating
influences of frost and rust; for the steel will resist the cracking of

*With special reference tc/Reinforced Concrete in Building Construction.

152 FIRE PREVENTION

the concrete by contraction and the concrete will protect the em-
bedded steel against rust.

Behavior under Fire. In addition to the destructive agencies
of decay, rust, and frost, there are also the injury and destruction
due to fire. Fire in our country probably destroys more building
property annually than all the other agencies put together because
we have used so much combustible material in our buildings and
have neglected to take advantage of the various means of fire pro-
tection and fire prevention.

No building material will withstand fire or a high degree of
heat, for a prolonged period without material damage or complete
destruction. Some building materials, such as wood, are consumed
by fire and, therefore, furnish 'fuel to the flames; other materials,
such as steel, while not consumed, readily warp and twist and are
weakened by heat, and, therefore, become incapable of carrying
their loads, resulting in the collapse of parts of buildings and a con-
sequent spread of fire; other materials such as clay tile are incom-
bustible and good non-conductors of heat, but are fragile and, there-
fore, suffer materially from heat when restrained against free expan-
.sion; materials such as glass have a relatively low melting point
as well as being fragile so that they either melt or break when sub-
jected to excessive heat; still other materials, such as brick when
well laid in good mortar, are practically fireproof although heat and
water combined will cause their mortar joints to open and their
surfaces to spall to some extent; and, finally, another material is
Portland cement concrete, which is incombustible; a material that
heat does not soften, warp, or melt; a material that is not fragile
and, therefore, not liable to be shattered because of unequal expan-
sion, but a material resembling brick, the surface of which will be
injuriously affected by prolonged heat but the body of which will
be uninjured by any ordinary fire in a building.

Quality of Concrete. Concrete when used as a building
material, in places where resistance to fire is essential, should be
Portland cement concrete and the proportion of cement used should
be such as to thoroughly cement the aggregates together. In other
words, like all other building materials the quality of concrete should
be good, as bad concrete is like bad brick or bad timber — except,
unlike bad timber, even bad concrete does not deteriorate with age.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 153

In reinforced concrete for buildings, the amount of Portland
cement should be between one-fifth and one-fourth of the entire
volume of the concrete. Portland cement may be briefly described
as a definitely-proportioned and finely-ground mixture of calcareous
(limey) and argillaceous (clayey) materials, burned or semi-fused to
a clinker, which clinker is reground to a very fine powder. This
powder is the cement and has the property of setting or hardening
under water or when mixed with water. It will thus be seen that
the cement itself has been "tested by fire." The aggregates used
in such concrete are usually sand and broken stone or gravel, although
sometimes crushed slag or cinders or broken bricks are used in place
of stone or gravel. In different localities different aggregates are
used, one important feature of concrete being that concreting materi-
als are found in every locality and obtained at small cost. Port-
land cement, unlike steel, is now manufactured at so many centers
in the United States that the cost of cement delivered is nowhere
prohibitive to its use and generally its cost delivered is so low as to
stimulate an ever-increasing demand.

Construction Developments Due to Concrete. Early Forms.
The wide use of reinforced concrete has led to entirely new forms of
construction peculiarly adapted to that material. The earlier forms
of floor construction carried out in wood have continued for centu-
ries, and consist of planking laid flat upon joists, the joists being
supported directly upon walls or by beams or girders running at
right angles to the joists and in turn supported by walls or columns.
Such construction presents a broken ceiling surface giving oppor-
tunity for dirt and dust to collect and exposing a large surface for
fire to attack. In order to obtain a flat ceiling, a ceiling surface
is usually hung from, or rather nailed to, the under edges of the joists,
making a series of enclosed pockets between floor and ceiling that
may become breeding places for vermin. With the introduction of
iron and steel beams in building construction, beams and girders
of these materials replaced those of wood and, likewise, iron and
steel columns were often used instead of wooden posts to support
the beams. As iron and steel became cheaper and demands for
better construction grew, ways were devised for replacing wooden
floors with "fireproof floor construction." An early but very faulty
type of so-called fireproof floor consisted of brick arches between

154 FIRE PREVENTION

the iron beams with the bottom flanges of the beams exposed. These
floors were of tremendous weight and very expensive, and the lower
flanges of the beams being exposed to the action of fire would expand
and probably fail in fire. In order to reduce weight, the hollow
tile arch was introduced, and tile soffits were provided to protect
the beam flanges. Even this construction followed the lines of
wood floor construction, iron beams replacing the wooden joists,
and the tile arches replacing the flooring boards, thus permitting
the iron beams to be spaced 4 to 5 feet apart instead of 12 or 16
inches, as in the case of the wooden joists supporting plank flooring.
Applications of Concrete. With the advent of reinforced con-
crete about ten or twelve years ago — for it is as recently as that
that it has been used to any extent in this country — the same type
of floor construction was followed as in the case of wooden and tile
floors, only a concrete slab took the place of the boards or hollow tile

Fig. 87. Section of Reinforced Concrete Floor Showing Steel Beams Embedded in Concrete

arches, Fig. 87. These slabs rested upon steel beams which in turn
were supported by steel girders. Then some bolder designers built
reinforced concrete beams and girders, still adhering to the wooden-
floor type with little modification, Figs. 88 and 89. The next step
was the long span slab, doing away altogether with the joists and
making slabs of 12- to 20-foot spans carried directly on the walls or
girders without subdividing the panels by beams or joists, Figs. 90
and 91.

There was also developed a combination of tile and reinforced
concrete slab for long span slabs, which has usually been used with
structural steel girders, Fig. 92. It has several points in its favor
but it is a lamentable fact that nearly all of the so-called ' 'failures
of reinforced concrete" floors have occurred with this form of con-
struction. One of the objects of this construction has been a flat
ceiling without the trouble and expense of an independent suspended
ceiling. Also the cost of form work may be reduced in some cases

IT IT

1 J

Fig. 88. Detail Diagram of Concrete Construction of the Wooden-Floor Type

Fig.^ 90. Reinforced Concrete Floor Construction of the Girder and Slab Type

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 159

because of lighter construction. None of these types of construc-
tion, however, were other than applications of reinforced concrete
to forms of construction developed for other materials.

The complete continuity, or the monolithic character of re-
inforced concrete construction has resulted in a type of floor peculiar
to this material and one that could not be built economically of
other materials, that is, the girderless and beamless type; this is
illustrated by the so-called "mushroom" type, Fig. 93, designed by
C. A. P. Turner, and by the paneled-ceiling type, designed in the
author's office, a finished example of which is shown in Fig. 94, and
work under construction in Figs. 95 and 96. Decided fire-resisting
advantages are gained in these types of reinforced concrete con-
struction because of the absence of deep girders and beams with
their inherent exposures of edges and corners, and ceiling pockets
to collect the heat of a fire and to deflect the stream of water from

JfCT/O/f /I-A
Fig. 92. Floor Section Showing Combination Tile and Reinforced Concrete Construction

a fire hose. In addition to these advantages the paneled-ceiling
type reduces the dead weight of the structure and gives a very
pleasing architectural effect.

Fire= Resisting Qualities. In discussing the fire-resisting qual-
ities of concrete, three questions present themselves, viz,

(a) What security does reinforced concrete construction offer
against fire loss?

(b) Is any vital element of the structure exposed to injury in
case of fire f

In general, the greatest injury from fire may be looked for
on the under side of floors and beams. Fortunately, the con-
crete on that side is considered only as fire protection for the re-
inforcing steel and not as adding strength. If the concrete below

162

FIRE PREVENTION

the reinforcement protects the steel bars from the effects of fire by
remaining in place long enough, it serves its purposes and no material
injury will happen to the structure as a whole, for this lower con-
crete can easily be repaired. If, however, the lower concrete is
not an efficient protection to the reinforcing steel, reinforced con-
crete will be found deficient as a fire-resisting material.

It has been stated that "generally speaking" the concrete on
the lower side of a floor is considered only as fire protection for the

Fig. 95. Reinforced Concrete Flat Slab Construction for 400 Pounds
Per Square Foot Live Load, "C & S Type"

reinforcing steel. There is a marked exception to this rule in the
most approved reinforced concrete construction, for here the under
side of the floor construction is not in tension from support to sup-
port as is the case in ordinary wood and steel construction. In
fact, in the best floor designs the tension stresses occur on the under
side only in the middle half or middle third of the span and in the
remainder of the span the tension stresses occur on the upper side;
consequently, in such designs the larger part of the tension re-
inforcement is near the upper surface where it will be least affected

164 FIRE PREVENTION

by the action of fire. In these cases, from one-half to two-thirds,
or even three-fourths of the under side of a floor panel is in com-
pression and here injury to the lower surface of the concrete simply
reduces the effective depth of the construction and tends to increase
the compression stresses in the uninjured concrete.

Fig. 97. Series of Disconnected Beams or Slabs Resting on Supports
and Deflecting Under Load

Two illustrations will make clear the distribution of stresses
referred to, which follows the well-known laws of stress and strain.
Fig. 97 illustrates the usual case of wooden and steel beams in build-
ings and of non-continuous reinforced concrete beams; Fig. 98 illus-
trates the arrangement of the reinforcement in reinforced concrete
beams, whereby the structure is made continuous over supports.
In case of fire below such construction as illustrated in Fig. 98, the
complete stripping of the concrete below the lower reinforcing bars
and the stretching of these bars would not result in collapse, for
the structure would hold up through the cantilever action of the
portions over the supports. However, this condition could result
only from a very serious conflagration.

What do the records of fires in reinforced concrete buildings
show as to the resistance of such construction to fire? Notwith-
standing the great extent to which reinforced concrete has been
applied to building construction in this country during the past ten

VCQWXE33/ON —......-...I V MVCOMPRE33/ON

Fig. 98. Series of Connected Beams or Slabs Continuous Over Supports
and Deflecting Under Load

years, there are comparatively few examples of serious fires affecting
reinforced concrete structures and the dire prophecies of some pure
theorists and enemies of concrete seem never to have been fulfilled.
The author has collected as many reports as possible of fires in

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 165

"fireproof" buildings and has been greatly impressed by the fact
that while the records are full of terrible catastrophes and tremendous
losses in buildings of all other types of construction, there is an
utter absence of serious results recorded in connection with con-
crete buildings.

Certainly but one conclusion can be reached from the study of
the records, viz, that concrete is a reliable and safe building material
and will give a better account of itself in a case of fire than any of
the other commonly used materials. That this fact has been im-
pressed upon owners of concrete buildings is shown by the state-
ment published by the Turner Construction Company of New York,
after making a canvass of 1,000 owners of concrete buildings, that
they find 266 of these owneis who carry no insurance on their build-
ings, thus showing the confidence they have in the fire-resisting
qualities of their structures.

The cost of reinforced concrete buildings is but a little more
than the cost of "mill construction" — that is, buildings with brick
walls and wooden floors carried on wooden or iron columns — and
the cost of reinforced concrete construction is much less than that
of steel frame buildings with fireproof floors. Therefore it is evi-
dent that this form of construction, having been proved the most
fire-resisting of any building construction yet devised, will continue
to grow in popularity and with the natural betterment of both de-
signs and workmanship it will gradually supplant not only "mill
construction" but the older forms of fireproof construction. In
view of the extreme flexibility of this wonderful material it is
hard to imagine what more improved building material can be
devised to rival reinforced concrete.

Selection has been made from the available records of the
most serious fires in conorste buildings and they are presented here
in brief so that the reader may learn what effect fire has had
on buildings of this construction. The results of these actual
fire records in concrete buildings and the results of the experi-
ments made by the United States Geological Survey have been
given as direct quotations from those who personally examined
the structures and from the reports made by Richard L. Humphrey,
who personally conducted the government experiments, in prefer-
ence to .making general statements and unsupported claims for the

166 FIRE PREVENTION

fire-resisting properties of reinforced concrete construction. To
those who have studied the subject, none of these reports will be
new but even to them it will perhaps be interesting to have the
facts regarding the behavior of concrete brought together in log-
ical order and in condensed form.

FIRE RECORDS AND TESTS
"CONCRETE" FIRES

Peavey Elevator Company. In Cement for May, 1906, appears
the following description of the fire at the Peavey Elevator Plant
at Duluth, Minnesota:

''Recently a fire occurred in the plant of the Peavey Elevator
Company at Duluth, Minnesota, the plant consisting of wooden
buildings and a battery of thirty concrete grain storage tanks. The
wooden buildings contained nearly a million bushels of grain which,
with millions of feet of lumber, burned quickly, Fig. 99, and pro-
duced a terrific heat, sufficient to keep the fire fighters several hun-
dred feet away. The steel structure connecting the buildings
was fused at an early stage. The nearest line of concrete tanks
was but 35 feet away, and the tanks withstood the conflagration
without the slightest injury to the concrete or to the grain stored
in them.

'Tig. 100 shows the fire when practically over and also the near-
est line of concrete tanks."

Huyler Candy Factory. In the National Fire Protection Asso-
ciation Quarterly for January, 1908, there appears the following
record of the fire in the Huyler Candy Factory, New York:

"The fire was confined to the storage compartment, where it
originated, its fuel being furnished by empty paper candy boxes and
tall piles of flat paper stock; also a considerable amount of light
woodwork in the form of shelves, racks, and partitions. On account
of the tightness of the compartment and consequent accumulation
of smoke and gases, the fire was fought with great difficulty as hose
streams had to be used at close quarters from the fire-door openings
and through two holes broken through the ceiling. The rapid
prostration of the firemen from the effects of the gases prevented
quick control of the fire.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 169

"This concrete building is of the Roebling type, ten stories in
height, of fireproof construction, having columns of structural steel
protected by hollow tiling and covered with about f inch of cement.
The main girders are protected on the sides and beneath by plaster
held in place by wire netting as are also the smaller beams sup-
porting the floor between the girders. The floors are of cement
concrete, about 6 inches thick. The windows in the south and
east sides are of wire glass in metal-covered wooden frames. The
enclosures at the stair and elevator towers are hollow tiling covered
with plaster.

"The visible effects of the fire were: The partial destruction
of the outer coating of plaster on the beams and girders, leaving
netting exposed; and crumbling and dropping of plaster from inside
the netting in a few places, leaving the lower sides of the steel beams
partly exposed.

"Destruction of the cement coating covering the tiling at the
columns, leaving the tiling exposed.

"Bending of an exposed angle iron forming the corner of the
hand elevator shaft.

"Burning of the metal-covered wooden framing of the windows
which fell inward on the east side.

"There was no distortion of the columns or girders which could
be detected with the unaided eye. The floor leakage was very
slight and appeared only at a few places at the side walls, the larger
portion of the water used running down the stairway and elevator.
The management states that the wire-glass windows at the tenth
story formed an effective barrier to the flames which passed through
the ninth-story windows in the south wall after the latter were
broken out."

Dayton Motor Car Works.* A serious fire at the plant of the
Dayton Motor Car Company, Dayton, Ohio, has furnisried a very
interesting demonstration o'f the efficiency of reinforced concrete as
fireproof building material. No more convincing exhibit could pos-
sibly have been made than that set forth in the following notes:

"The main portion of the factory consisted of a mill-construction
building of five stories and basement, adjoined by a reinforced con-
crete building, Fig. 101, U-shaped in plan and six stories and base-

*Frpm an article by J, B. Gilbert, in the Engineering Record, March 28, 1908,

170

FIRE PREVENTION

m-m

m i •

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 171

ment in height; in fact, the two buildings were a continuous unit, as
the walls of the brick building served as the boundary of the con-
crete building on the open side of the U, communication being afforded
between the two buildings by means of doors on each floor.

"The concrete building was erected during the summer of 1907.
At 2 A. M. Friday, Feb. 21, 1908, fire broke out from some unknown
cause on the fourth floor of the new building, which floor contained
the upholstering department of the factory. On this floor were
large quantities of excelsior, curled hair, dry wood composing bodies
of automobiles, and other inflammable materials in large quanti-
ties. The fire soon spread over the entire fourth floor of the concrete
building, and, not being impeded in its progress by fire doors between
the new and old building, the flames soon communicated to the old
building, where the greatest damage was done. When the fire
department arrived on the scene, it was apparent at a glance that
the greatest destruction would be in the old building, and the chief
of the department directed his men to confine their attention to it
and to allow the concrete building to take care of itself. Results
fully justified the confidence he placed in this type of construction.
The fire burned itself out on the fourth floor of the new building,
and in burning out the window frames and sash, the flames shot
upward, and in some few instances burned the sash out of the
windows on the fifth floor, but not enough to cause any serious
damage.

"It was not long before the fire was confined to the old building,
and inside of three hours, the fourth and fifth floors and roof had
fallen down onto the third floor a charred mass of ruins. The fire
was stopped at this point, but the building was a wreck. The walls
remained standing and might be fit for a new interior, but even
they bore pathetic and eloquent testimony to the inefficiency of
that type of construction under stress of fire.

"The heat under the ceiling of the fourth floor of the new build-
ing was so intense that the iron pipes of the sprinkler system were
bent completely out of shape, in some instances having sagged clear
down to the floor. It should be stated that the automatic sprink-
lers were just being installed, no water having as yet been turned
into the pipes and, therefore, the burnt area was unprotected from
that source. Throughout the building wood plugs about 2 inches

172 FIRE PREVENTION

by 3 inches had been inserted in the under side of the floor panels
for convenience in attaching electrical wires. The heat was so
intense that these, although exposed on only one small surface,
were in many cases burned completely out, leaving an empty hole
in the concrete. At one place where the heat was most intense
the concrete spalled off from the corners of two beams for a length
of about 4 feet and a width of about 2 inches. No cracks were dis-
coverable in the floor panels or in any beams or girders.

"One point was brought out by this fire that has a very practical
bearing on the treatment of cement floors finished on a reinforced
concrete slab. The concrete entering into the construction of this
building was a 1 : 2 : 4 mixture, while the finished coat 1 inch in
thickness was the usual mixture of one part cement to two parts
sand. The finishing coat was applied as soon as possible after the
main slab had been poured, but very naturally after it had taken
its initial set. Where the heat was greatest the finishing coat sep-
arated from the slab and bulged up in great mounds. All of this
coat throughout the burned area had to be replaced.

"Another point of interest, especially to builders in the terri-
tory adjoining Dayton, is the effect of this fire upon the aggregates
used in pouring this building. The chief ingredient in point of bulk
was washed river gravel, 1 inch in diameter and smaller. Its splen-
did resistance to this fire demonstrates beyond the shadow of doubt
its fitness for this use.

"It is interesting from the manufacturers' standpoint to know
that within, two days after the fire the machinery was running and
operations were resumed in this building. The two days mentioned
were consumed in clearing away the dtbris incident to such a fire.
The fourth floor where the most damage was done, was piled to its
full capacity with salvage from the destroyed brick building, thus
proving its safe condition.

"It is safe to say that if the fire doors had been in place be-
tween the old and new buildings, so as to confine the fire to the
floor on which it originated, the damage would have been trifling
although the sprinkler system was not in operation. The fire de-
partment could then have devoted some attention to the concrete
building and checked the flames before they burned themselves out.

"In order to ascertain whether the structure had been damaged

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 173

to any extent or had been weakened by the fire, it was decided to
make a load test on the floor above that on which the fire originated.
Before making this test a careful examination of the concrete on
the under side of the beams and girders was made, and all of the
concrete which had become vitiated by the heat was knocked off
with a hammer. In some cases this exposed the steel reinforcement.
The beams and girders which were most seriously affected in this
way were selected as the ones on which the test should be made.
The building was designed for a live load of 120 pounds per square
foot, and the girder over which the test was made had a span of 22
feet. Equal areas on both sides of this girder were loaded so as to
give a uniformly distributed load, the area covered being 352 square
feet and the total load 77,250 pounds, consisting of pig iron, fly
wheels, and any other available heavy material that could be ob-
tained at the plant. This gave a uniformly distributed load of
about 218 pounds to the square foot, and under this load the girder
in question showed a deflection of only ^ inch at the center of
the span. Had more material been available the test wrould have
been carried further as a matter of interest in determining how much
of a load could be carried before an alarming deflection in the girder
would be reached. The owners, however, on observing the amount
of material that had been piled on the floor, were so thoroughly con-
vinced of the stability of the building and of the fact that in prac-
tice it would be impossible to load their building to such an extent,
that they did not feel it at all necessary to go further by obtaining
materials elsewhere for the heavier loading.

"One fact of great importance was very thoroughly demon-
strated, namely, that the utmost care should be used in so placing
the steel that it would remain in position during the pouring of the
concrete. In this building the greatest care had been exercised to
secure this condition, but in spite of all precautions it was found
that in some few cases the steel reinforcement was within J inch of
the surface. The fact that the steel remained uninjured even under
this condition is a very good recommendation as to the fire-resist-
ing qualities of concrete, but it is also a warning to use the utmost
care in seeing that the steel is not misplaced during the process of
pouring the concrete. In the majority of cases in this building the
steel was embedded at the proper depth." ***** * *

174 FIRE PREVENTION

Since receiving the above article the following letter from
Frank B. Ramby, Chief of the Dayton Fire Department, has been
obtained for publication from the Trussed Concrete Steel Company,
to which it was sent:

"In reply to your favor of the 10th, in which you refer to the
recent fire in the new reinforced concrete building at the Dayton
Motor Car Company's plant, I would state that, this being the first
fire we have had in a building of concrete construction, I am highly
pleased with the results of this fire. When I had arrived on the
scene, the fire had extended over the entire fourth floor. The
entire contents of this floor were destroyed. The building, how-
ever, escaped with slight damage.

"Through the absence of fire doors and the inability of our
department to withstand the intense heat and smoke, the fire com-
municated itself through an opening into the adjoining five-story
brick building and was confined to the two upper floors of this struc-
ture. The biggest fight was carried on here, and the greatest loss
was sustained. The lower floors, being occupied by offices and
warerooms of the company, suffered greatly from water.

"The new building being of concrete construction aided us in
preventing the fire from wiping out the entire plant, as we were able
to concentrate practically our entire force on the old building, it
requiring but a small force to subdue the fire in the new building.
"In my opinion there are a few points which this fire has proved,
namely :

"First, that the reinforcing steel should be covered with at
least 2 inches of concrete, because the fire, having penetrated the
lower inch of concrete, would have injured the strength of the struc-
ture, had it not been for the rigidly attached diagonals.

"Second, that the finished cement surface should be put on
when the floor is being laid, thereby forming a solid mass, because
the finished surface was destroyed wherever the heat was intense,
the slab underneath being uninjured.

"Third, as we were hampered greatly in handling our ladders
and several of our men had a very narrow escape from being injured
or possibly killed by falling sashweights, and we were compelled to
force into the building all window frames that had not already
fallen before we could use our ladders to advantage, I would suggest

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 175

that in the construction of a building an iron pipe be embedded in
the concrete for the weights to fall into, in case the window frames
are destroyed by fire. If this plan were adopted in the construction
of a building, it would enable the firemen to reach the fire without
endangering their lives and would assist greatly in reducing the
fire loss."

Thompson and Norris Building. In Cement for May, 1908,
appears the following note regarding the serious fire in the Thompson
and Norris Building of Brooklyn, New York:

"There was a fire on the seventh floor of this building which
burned up the entire contents of the floor consisting of cork and
paper stock. The loss was estimated at $10,000. The damage
to the building consisted in the cracking of the concrete below the
reinforcement on two beams, but this was repaired for a nominal
sum. On the floor above were a number of printing presses which
were run the next morning as usual, no sign of damage extending to
that floor. The fire occurred in the afternoon and the employes
quietly walked out of the building without fear of harm and the
office force remained at work in the building during the fire. Some
damage was done to the building by firemen breaking the wire-glass
windows to let out the smoke. After failing tjo break holes in the
floor-slab with axes, in order to let the water run off quickly, the
firemen secured a piece of cold rolled shafting and using this as a
battering ram, managed to punch some holes in the floor and let
the water run through, damaging the stock below."

F. W. Tunnell and Company Building. In Cement Age for
August, 1909, appears the following report of a fire in the Glue
Manufacturing plant of F. W. Tunnell and Company.

"The building was erected in 1906 by Ballinger and Perrot,
Architects and Engineers, Philadelphia. It is a three-story struc-
ture 104 feet by 43 feet, and is of reinforced concrete throughout.
The second floor is supported on reinforced concrete columns spaced
about 15 feet, and the third floor and roof have a clear span of 39
feet, supported on cross-beams 12 inches by 26 inches, the latter
reinforced by eight IJ-inch round rods. The slabs are 4J inches
thick, reinforced with f-inch round rods on 6-inch centers. The
floors have a 2-inch cinder concrete base over the slabs with a 1-inch
cement top coat. The walls are reinforced concrete, 12 inches

176 FIRE PREVENTION

thick. The wall construction includes pilasters. The windows
were of the metal frame and wire-glass pattern. Edison Portland
cement was used.

"About this building, Fig. 102, and comprising a part of the
plant, were several frame buildings. It was in one of the latter
buildings that the fire took place, due, it is said, to spontaneous
ignition. Thus, when the fire was in full blast the concrete
structure at certain points was practically enveloped in flames.
The contents of the factory made an intensely hot fire; in fact, the
heat was so intense that the wire glass in the concrete building
melted, this being attributed to the fact that the windows were
open, thus permitting the flames to gain access to the interior, and
to surround the glass. Judging from previous tests of wire glass
it would probably have withstood the heat with the flames confined
to one side. Wooden drying racks in the concrete building took
fire and soon there was a mass of flames within and without. The
buildings immediately adjoining the concrete structure were, with
one exception, totally destroyed. Even a brick ^boiler house adjoin-
ing the concrete building, Fig. 103, was so badly damaged that it was
necessary to take down the walls. The destruction of the brick
structure affords an interesting comparison with the behavior of
the concrete building. The building that escaped destruction owes
its survival to the fact that it was protected by the concrete build-
ing, the latter proving to be an effectual barrier to the fire.

"When the fire finally subsided it was found that the concrete
building was practically uninjured. That it was thoroughly tested
is indicated by the fact that a wire lath and plaster ceiling suspended
from the roof beams was practically destroyed. The ceiling was
not intended as a protective feature, but merely to prevent the
beams from deflecting or interfering with air currents forced through
the room during process of manufacture. <. -

"One end of the building was open, arid 'through this the flames
concentrated upon a concrete column which merely spalled. Shrink-
age cracks here and there widened under the stress. The bottom
of a concrete cantilever had also spalled, but the damage can all
be repaired at slight cost by patching. The vital parts of the struc-
ture remained intact.

"The owners are so pleased with the behavior of the building

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION -170

that they promptly authorized Ballinger and Perrot to prepare plans
for additional reinforced concrete buildings to replace the structure
destroyed.

"No practical purpose would be served by going further into
the details of this fire" It only remains to be said that the result
corresponds with practical tests of other concrete buildings sub-
jected to the same conditions. The unusual circumstance in this
case was the fact that the structure was attacked from within and
without, but, as stated, the slight damage can be repaired at trifling-
cost. So far as this building is concerned the business of tr.c firm
can proceed without interruption, and with the new buildings of
reinforced concrete there will be established a plant upon which the
item of insurance may be eliminated to say nothing of the satisfac-
tion of knowing that fire cannot burn it."

Concrete Cottage at Winthrop Beach. One of the most inter-
esting records of a fire in a concrete building where the walls rather
than the floors were subjected to a fire test is reported by E. S.
Lamed, Consulting Engineer, Boston, in Cement Age for Septem-
ber, 1909.

"On the night of October 2, Winthrop Beach, a suburb of
Boston, suffered a most disastrous fire, which in the point of time
and intensity is rather notable. Two large hotels of frame construc-
tion, and seven other frame houses were destroyed, the fire occurring
about 11 P.M., and in the short space of two hours, the cellar walls
contained only the smoldering ruins. This property was all located
on Crest Avenue, overlooking the ocean, and the character of con-
struction and furnishings of the buildings offered no stay to the
progress of the flames.

"A concrete cottage, Fig. 104, was in the course of construction,
immediately adjacent to the Crest Hall Hotel, a distance of only 8
feet intervening. This concrete house was of monolithic wall con-
struction, the first story being 10 inches thick, having a continuous
air space 3 inches wide; the second story was built 8 inches thick,
furred on the inside to give a 2-inch air space.

"Fig. 105, which was taken at midnight, shows the incomplete
condition of the concrete building and its appearance as the fire
broke through the partially completed roof. The interior construc-
tion was of lumber and at the time of the fire the floor joists and

180,

FIRE PREVENTION

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

181

182

FIRE PREVENTION

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 183

boarding were in place, and the roof had been covered in with 1-inch
boards, upon which was to be constructed a light concrete covering
reinforced with expanded metal. The window and door openings
had not been closed in, so that the fire from the adjacent hotel had
ready access into this incomplete building. Much of the wood
trim, door and window frames and sash, were stored in the cellar
of this building — fuel for the quick, hot fire.

"The concrete in the walls was of Edison Portland cement in
the proportions of 1 : 3 : 6 in which beach sand and gravel were
used as aggregates.

"The exterior of the building was finished with a f-inch coat
of Portland cement mortar, and this finish was about ten days old
at the time of the fire, the walls having been constructed about
three weeks earlier.

"Fig. 100 shows the concrete building after the fire, and inspec-
tion by the writer three weeks later indicates that the strength of
the concrete walls has not been impaired, the only injury being done
to the plastering on the side of the wall immediately adjacent to
the hotel which was destroyed. This plastering will be stripped
off and the walls replastered, the damage being only superficial.

"As an evidence of the intensity of the heat, it is noted that
granite curb stones on the opposite side of the street have crumbled
and spalled off so that they will have to be relaid; the concrete
steps at the rear of the cottage, within 12 feet of the hottest part of
the fire, have not been damaged.

"An interesting feature in this fire is found in the fact that the
fire department, realizing that the frame buildings were doomed to
destruction, concentrated their efforts to protect other adjacent
frame houses, and left the concrete cottage in its incomplete condi-
tion to take care of itself."

F. B. Klock Building. In Cement Record for December, 1909,
there appears the following account of a fire in a reinforced con-
crete building showing the actual damage caused by the burning of
6,000 pounds of drugs:

"An interesting report was made lately by George A. Stage,
Adjuster for John Naghten and Company, Chicago, on the fire loss
of the reinforced concrete factory building of F. B. Klock, South
Elgin,- Illinois.

184 FIRE PREVENTION

'The adjuster contended that the concrete floors and ceiling
were not damaged sufficiently to be torn down, but the owner claimed
that the concrete had been weakened by the intense heat, about
6,000 pounds of drugs having burned. It was decided to test the
building by putting a weight of 400 pounds to the square foot on
the panels, which were to be held defective if they deflected
more than ^ inch, that being the original test made by the archi-
tects when the building was turned over to the owners. Tests
were made of eight panels involved in the fire, all of them showing
more than ^-inch deflection with 250 pounds to the square foot.
When the same weight was applied to other panels in the building
not affected by the fire, the deflection was less than tV inch. In
consequence a total loss was allowed on six panels and a compro-
mise on two. The adjuster held that had the building been of any
other construction than concrete it would have been totally de-
stroyed owing to the tremendous heat engendered by the burning
drugs. The expansion of the reinforcing steel under the intense
heat is believed to account for the weakening of the concrete.

"In his report the adjuster states the following: 'In conclusion
I wish to add that the test which was made demonstrates to us
the practicability of concrete construction. The tremendous heat
created by the burning of 6,000 pounds of drugs would have meant
a total loss of the building had it been of any other construction.' '

Rubber Reclaiming Manufacturing Plant. In the National Fire
Protection Association Quarterly of April, 1910, appears the fol-
lowing record of a fire in the Rubber Reclaiming Manufacturing
plant:

"The fire started in the main room on the upper floor of Mill
'B' and was first seen in the drying screens where the reclaiming
rubber, ground to a fine pulp, was spread and subjected to a draft
of air heated by being forced through steam pipe coils by fans. The
fire was probably caused by an overheated journal in this rapidly
revolving fan system. The watchman's clock showed that he had
visited this room within twenty minutes prior to the discovery of
the blaze by the mill employes who were working on the ground
floor of the building. The private fire department was at once
called into action and in a short time five streams of water were in
service.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 185

"The building was constructed of reinforced concrete with 8-inch
walls, 16-inch piers, and 4-inch floors on heavy concrete columns
and stringers. The roof was composition laid on several thick-
nesses of boards, trusses braced with iron rods. The only ignitible
materials were the stock, roof, one frame partition, and the wooden
framework of the drying apparatus. The stock was particularly
inflammable and evidently burned fiercely, for, despite the water
thrown upon it, the heat was sufficient to cause the iron rods to bend

Fig. 107. Effects of a Fire in the Rubber Reclaiming Manufacturing Plant

under the weight above them and tear down the concrete walls
into which they were fastened, thus demolishing all of Mill fB'
above the floor line of the second floor, Fig. 107.

"The damage to the property on the lower floor was almost
entirely by water, though some little fire dropped down from above.

"Separating Mills 'BJ and 'C' was a reinforced concrete wall
which did not go through the roof. Through this wall was a large
opening on each •> floor protected by a single door on the Mill 'B'
side; that on the second story was torn away in some manner, prob-
ably by the falling roof, and the fire spread into Mill 'C', although
the damage in it was confined principally to the crude rubber which

186 FIRE PREVENTION

was hanging up for air drying. There was considerable water on
the ground floor of Mill 'C'."

McCray, Morrison and Company Elevator. In Rock Products
for May 22, 1910, appears the following description of the de-
struction of a 100,000-bushel grain elevator, which partially sur-
rounded a reinforced concrete grain drier so that the latter struc-
ture was subjected to a very severe fire test :

"Concrete construction was put to a crucial test in the burning
of the 100,000-bushel elevator of McCray, Morrison and Company,
at Kentland, Indiana, last month, says the Grain Dealers' Journal.
At the time of the fire everything was very dry, and the buildings
were so quickly enveloped in flames the workmen scarcely had
time to escape with their lives.

"Figs. 108 and 109, showing the plant before and after the fire,
tell the story clearly and accurately. In an L formed by the
different buildings a reinforced concrete grain drier had been erected
and enclosed by a frame ironclad covering. This building was 10
feet from the grain elevator building on the side and 16 feet distant
on the end, which was connected to the elevator with wood con-
veyor boxes.

"The plant contained approximately 450,000 feet of lumber
and 50,000 bushels of grain, which were consumed in a few hours,
leaving nothing but the concrete drier standing plumb, surrounded
by a smoldering mass of debris. The drier housing was burned
away; the metal fans and steam pipes were red hot and warped;
the brass grease cups on the fan bearings were melted and the iron
doors warped. But the concrete work remained intact with little
damage, notwithstanding that it contained about 700 bushels of
corn which was reduced to ashes during the fire. The drier sup-
ported its own garner and 12,000 pounds of steam pipe, yet not one
of its supports failed.

"In no previous grain elevator fire has concrete been put to
such a severe test, and in no case has it passed through a fire
with more gratifying results to owners and builder."

Pacific Coast Borax Company's Building. In Cement for Sep-
tember, 1910, a reference is made to one of the earliest fires in rein-
forced concrete buildings, namely in the Pacific Coast Borax Com-
pany's building at Bayonne, New Jersey.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

187

f'In this case a four-story building, entirely of reinforced con-
crete construction, except that the roof was of wood, was quite
thoroughly burned out, in the upper two stories, by fire that origi-
nated in an adjacent one-story section. The wooden roof was
entirely burned off and all of the inflammable contents of the third
and fourth floors were burned, with the result that a very hot fire,
of perhaps an hour's duration, tested the concrete walls and floors
of these rooms. Very little damage was done to the concrete, and
I understand the necessary repairs were made at comparatively

Fig. 108. McCray, Morrison and Company's Elevator
and Drier Before the Fire

insignificant cost. At the same time the strength of the building
was demonstrated by the fact that heavy loads, falling from the
roof to the floor of the top story, did not cause any serious damage."

N. F. P. A. Report. In the report of the Committee on con-
crete and reinforced concrete building construction presented at the
Chicago meeting in May, 1908, of the National Fire Protection
Association by Edward T. Cairns, Chairman, reference was made
to the fire in the Huyler Candy Factory and in the Dayton Motor
Car Company's plant, descriptions of which have been given above.
Mr. Cairns also gave the following notes regarding other fires:

Concrete Buildings. "On May 27, 1907, a fire occurred in
Merritt Brothers' Factory at Camden, New Jersey, which in a
building of ordinary construction would doubtless have resulted

188

FIRE PREVENTION

disastrously, but proved, under the circumstances, to be chiefly
a demonstration of the fire-resistive quality of the building.

"The building in which this fire occurred is a five-story structure,
occupied for the manufacture of metal clothes-closets for factories.
The columns, beams, floors, and roof are of heavy type reinforced
concrete, the mixture being 1 : 2| : 5 small size crushed trap rock.
The walls are brick carried on a concrete frame. The fifth story
was occupied for painting and drying. In the corner of the room
were two wooden gas-heated drying ovens approximately 7X10X8

Fig. 109. Same After the Fire. Reinforced Concrete
Drier the Only Building Standing

feet and along the side of the room next to this were a number of
smaller ovens, all of metal construction. These two wooden ovens
had been filled with freshly painted metal to be dried. An employe
endeavored to light the gas under the oven and he either dropped
his torch or the burners failed to ignite properly so that the paint
and the drip pans close by caught fire and the flames promptly
extended into the oven.

The fire, which lasted from one-half to three-fourths of an
hour, practically burned up the wooden ovens and some of the other
light inflammable materials close by. The flames did not extend
very far into the room, however, though there was enough heat to
melt out the soldered metal frames of the wire-glass monitors on
the roof a little to one side of the ovens, and to melt the links on

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 189

two fire doors, 40 to 50 feet away. The concrete columns and
ceiling in the immediate vicinity of the fire showed some cracks
but no material injury; absolutely no repairs of any sort were
made to the concrete after the fire, the only repairs being those
made to the above-mentioned wire-glass window frames.

"On May 30, 1907, a fire destroyed the factory of the Waverly
Paper Box Board Company, Waverly, New Jersey, and afforded a
test of concrete, the entire plant having plain 12-inch solid-concrete
walls one story high. The floors were also of concrete, but the roof
was wood and was entirely consumed with the combustible con-
tents of the buildings. The walls seem to have been of fairly good
gravel concrete and suffered some damage from the cracking and
the dehydration of the cement at the surface, but as a whole they
may be said to have resisted this fire about as well as brick would
have done, and have since been used in the rebuilding of the factory.

Concrete Blocks. "There have probably been several fires in
buildings of concrete block construction, but only three, which seem
to warrant special mention, have been reported to the Committee.

"One occurred in Nashville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1907,
and was fully reported in the Quarterly of January, 1908 (page 178).
This was a four-story building 50 feet by 170 feet with walls of two-
piece concrete blocks and a wooden-joisted interior, occupied through-
out by a retail furniture store. The top story and the attic were
completely burned out but the damage to concrete block walls was
nominal and easily repaired. The test could not be termed severe,
but under the circumstances the blocks made a creditable showing.

"The fire apparently started in the attic in the vicinity of the
elevator sheaves and spread throughout this space, burning off the
roof of the suspended ceiling and also burning out most of the con-
tents of the top story; it did not, however, entirely burn the floor,
nor did it extend to any of the stories below.

"It is quite apparent that the heat in the top story was severe
for a limited period, especially against the concrete blocks forming
the top of the walls above the suspended ceiling. The result was
the spalling and chipping of window lintels and sills to a considerable
extent and the destruction of galvanized iron cornice, but so far as
could be ascertained there were no serious fractures in the walls or
their individual blocks.

190 FIRE PREVENTION

"As a precautionary measure, the Building Department in-
sisted upon the erection of a number of reinforcing pilasters around
the inside of the building, and after this was done the roof and sus-
pended ceiling were replaced in practically the same manner as
before. The sills and lintels of the windows were patched up with
cement at the point where the worst damage occurred, and as the
building stands today it shows hardly any trace of the fire.

"The second fire occurred December 9, 1907, at Anderson,
Indiana, in a three-story building just completed, but not yet occu-
pied. The house was fitted up for an Old People's Home, had
ordinary single-piece hollow concrete block walls, wooden interior,
and was fairly good size, containing forty living rooms, office, din-
ing rooms, etc. The entire interior was burned out, but the walls
stood with very little damage, except at the top and around windows;
these walls have been used in the reconstruction.

"The third fire occurred at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, April 29,
1908, in a basement and two-story building 60 feet by 115 feet, occu-
pied in basement and first story for storage of hay, grain, feed, cot-
ton, and hardware. Walls were 10 inches thick, made of single-
piece hollow-concrete blocks; floors and roof were of ordinary joist
construction. The fire started in the first story and burned from
9:30 P. M. till midnight and the effect is well described by the report
of the Tennessee Inspection Bureau as follows:

"The blocks were of a heavy type, and the aggregate used was
a good quality of small crushed stone — very little sand being used—
but the cement was of poor quality and insufficient quantity. A
number of the blocks examined after the fire show that there was no
uniformity of manufacture. The temperature of the fire seems to
have been very moderate ; in fact, several lines of interior girders were
burned only to a depth of about 4 inches, and sacked cottonseed,
etc., stored in the basement, was not totally destroyed. The tem-
perature was also evenly distributed, though concrete blocks in
different portions of the walls did not stand the fire alike, in some
cases the disintegration being excessive or total — notably the second
story of the front wall — while in other instances the blocks re-
mained in a fair state of preservation, though with no mechanical
strength and badly chipped and spalled.

"The effect of water on the heated blocks and wall is shown by

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 191

the blocks which fell from the building; these blocks absorbed water
greatly, being found damp thirty-six hours after the fire had been
extinguished, and crumbled when dropped upon one another, being
no stronger than unslaked lime.

"Unequal expansion between the outer and inner shells of
blocks is clearly demonstrated by the rear wall where the bond
between the outer and inner shells of blocks is cracked continuously,
almost the entire length of the remaining wall.

"Imperfect mortar and mortar joints were found in all portions
of walls remaining, the horizontal bond being only on the outer
edges of outer and inner shells. This same defect is noted in verti-
cal joints. The quality of mortar used was very poor and stood
the fire even worse than the blocks themselves. In a number of
cases it can be scratched away with a match, like sand.

"All the blocks examined were very porous, no means at all
having been taken to prevent small voids which prevailed throughout.

"All walls above the first floor fell, the rear and front walls
being completely down, with the exception of several remaining
courses of blocks of the rear wall. This rear wall fell first, carrying
fire into a frame L of a livery stable, No. 223 West Main Street.
This was followed by the west wall, which carried fire into the frame,
iron-clad blacksmith shop, No. 221 West Main Street, completely
consuming it. It should be noted that the only weight carried at all
by the walls was the dead weight of the second floor and the roof, the
second floor (skating rink), at the time of the fire, being unoccupied.
Beyond considerable chipping and a small amount of spalling, the
limestone foundation which formed the basement wall was not badly
"injured, and with repairs might be used again. The total damage
to the Overall Building, and contents, is estimated at $10,000, with
insurance of $2,000 on building and $4,000 on contents.

"Conclusions: The concrete blocks, though heavy, were manu-
factured of inferior materials, under light pressure, and with no
uniformity whatever. The combined effect of heat and water com-
pletely destroyed all mechanical strength. They were very porous,
absorbed a great deal of water — no provision having been made to
fill small voids. The blocks subjected to the greatest heat disin-
tegrated badly; in falling they broke into small pieces, being no
harder than unslaked lime. The mortar joints were imperfect and

192

FIRE PREVENTION

the quality of mortar used was poor. In fact, even if the blocks
had been good, it is to be doubted whether the wall would have
stood, the heat evidently releasing all bond at mortar joints. The
fire demonstrated the unreliability of this class of construction.

Fig. 110.

Appearance After Exposure 19 Fire and Water of Test Panel of
Miscellaneous Building Materials

The blocks and mortar joints may be good or bad — though usually
bad — and in order to obtain correct information on specific cases,
a fire is necessary and the information obtained expensive.

"This was undoubtedly a long hot fire and furnished a more
severe test of the blocks than the other two fires mentioned above
and seems to justify the opinion of the Committee expressed in las*

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

193

year's report that Veil made blocks are suitable for small build-
ings, where no high temperatures or long continued fires are to
be expected, but the hollow form in which they are made abso-

Fig. 111. Appearance of Test Panel of Hollow Tile After Exposure

lutely precludes their being classed as highly fire-resistive or suitable
for fire walls, or for any buildings which may be subjected to severe

fire.' "

LABORATORY TESTS

The laboratory tests to determine the fire-resisting qualities of
various building materials made by the United States Geological
Survey under the direction of Richard L. Humphrey at the furnace

194

FIRE PREVENTION

of the Underwriters' Laboratories in Chicago are described in full
in bulletin No. 370 of the United States Geological Survey published
in 1909, and any one desiring to familiarize himself with the results
of these very elaborate tests should send to Washington for a copy
of this bulletin. The author has selected from this report the de-

Fig. 112. Appearance of Test Panel of Brick After Exposure

scription of the tests on the four panels of concrete and a few panels
of other material. There were tested altogether thirty panels of dif-
ferent kinds of building materials, including stone of various kinds,
Fig. 110; tile, Fig. Ill; brick, Fig. 112; hollow concrete blocks; and
solid concrete, the latter being parts of reinforced concrete beams

•+3 "*

g a'

a sj

fl O

.2 a

S g

196

FIRE PREVENTION

tested at the Geological Survey Laboratory at St. Louis. The form
of oven and manner of handling the panels are shown in Fig. 113.

Panel 17. Materials. "Panel 17, Fig. 114, consisted of four
kinds of concrete, as follows : A 1 : 2 : 4 limestone, crushed to pass
a f-inch screen and be retained on a J-inch screen; a 1 : 2 : 4 cinder,
containing 24.5 per cent of combustible material (these cinders
were screened to pass a IJ-inch screen); a 1 : 2 : 4 granite, crushed

Fig. 114. Appearance after Test of Panel Consisting of Different Kinds of Concrete

to pass a f-inch screen and remain on a J-inch screen; and a 1 : 2 : 4
gravel, screened to pass a f-inch screen and remain on a i-inch
screen.

"The sand and cement mixed with the above coarse aggregates
were Meramec River sand and 'typical Portland' cement. The
specimens fired were sections of plain beams previously tested in
the Government's structural-materials testing laboratories at St.
Louis. They measured 8X11 inches in cross-section and varied in

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 197

length from 18 to 36 inches. These test pieces were laid in fire
clay on their 8-inch side, thus exposing the 11 -inch face to the fire.
This arrangement permitted a section 22 inches high by 6 feet long
of each material, except the limestone concrete, to be exposed to
the fire in the same panel. Only one piece of the limestone con-
crete, about 20 inches long, was tested, as that was all of this char-
acter of concrete which could be obtained at the time the shipment
was made from St. Louis.

Test. "The firing was started at 10:52 A.M. June 7, 1907,
and continued for 2 hours and 3 minutes, after which the panel was
quenched for 5 minutes with water. The temperature of the water
was 52° F.

"At the start of the test the back of the panel was wet, owing
to rain the night previous. The burners started with a fairly uni-
form temperature and under good control ; the top was not as hot,
however, as the lower part of the panel. In 25 minutes a slight
pitting was noticed on all four kinds of concrete and small pieces,
about J inch deep and 1 inch in area, fell out from the faces. The
cinder concrete developed bright red spots, from which small flames
issued. These spots covered the greater part of the surface of the
cinder concrete and were about 8 to 10 inches apart. At 45 minutes
steam was noticed passing through the joints on the back of the
wall. At 65 minutes the cinder concrete was quite badly pitted,
though of a uniform color, the entire surface having attained the
same color as the bright red spots before mentioned. A number
of small bulges projected out from the wall about J to J inch. Pits
developed as these bulging portions fell away. The limestone and
gravel concrete were pitted all over to a depth of J to J inch.

"The temperatures of the furnace observed during the two-
hour test were from 1,300° to 1,650° F.

Results. "On the application of water, portions of the sur-
face of all four varieties of concrete washed away. The limestone
washed away from } to \ inch, but the remaining surface was very
smooth and the exposed stones showed the effect of calcination.
The surrounding concrete, however, was apparently hard, free from
cracks, and showed no sign of discoloration or calcination. The
surface had very much the appearance of concrete which had been
vigorously brushed while green.

198 FIRE PREVENTION

•

"The stone was discolored to a depth of about 1 inch. Back
of this the stone did not show any signs of heat treatment. The
material on the surface had a very dead sound when tapped gently
with the hammer, but on the back side it had the usual metallic
ring.

"In the case of the gravel, where the mortar portion of the
concrete was rather deep, the surface was still intact but the greater
portion of the surface was pitted and washed away to an average
depth of J inch. The surface was very rough and the exposed
pieces of gravel were dark brown and very easily broken under the
hammer. In several cases they were split and parts of the stone'
could be pulled out with the fingers. The particles of gravel were
discolored in the concrete to a depth of 4 inches. The mortar in
this layer was apparently normal, and appeared as hard as that of
the unaffected product. It was but slightly cracked and only on
the surface. Throughout all the pieces vertical cracks running
back from the fired side were observed; they were from about 4 to
10 inches apart and extended back from the face about 2 to 4 inches.
They were nearly straight in direction and could be found on both
the bottom and the top of each beam. The face of the portion in
which the gravel was discolored had a very deep sound when tapped
with a hammer, while the back had a good metallic ring.

"In the case of the granite there was a considerable portion
from which the mortar surface had not been washed away. The
remaining surfaces were washed away about } to f inch. The ex-
posed pieces of stone were slightly discolored, being lighter than the
unaffected material, but in most cases they were hard and broke a
little more easily than the unheated ones. The mortar was soft
and crumbled about 1J inches. For about 3 inches in from the
face the mortar had turned a light straw color, but was quite hard. For
about 6 inches from the face the concrete had a whitish tinge, which
indicated that the free moisture had been driven entirely out. This
whitish layer was apparently as hard as the layer on the back. To
a depth of about 2 inches the pieces of stone had a rather cloudy
look.

"Vertical cracks ran directly back from the face on both the
top and the bottom of the beam, being from 2 to 6 inches apart
and extending back from the face 4 inches. By tapping, the beams

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

199

could be broken across these cracks. The face had a very hard
sound when tapped with the hammer; the back had the usual metal-
lic ring.

"In the case of the cinder a part of the face was still intact after
the application of water. However, it is very likely that the upper

Fig. 115. Appearance After Test of Panel Containing Granite-Concrete Beams

left-hand corner was more or less protected from the intense heat
to which the remainder of the panel was subjected. On the other
parts of the cinder concrete the spalling from the fire and water
was from f to 1J inches deep. The surface was very rough and
very badly pitted, although no cracks could be observed. For
about one inch the concrete was black and looked very spongy,

200 FIRE PREVENTION

•

because the particles of combustible material had been entirely
burned out. In a layer about J to f inch thick directly behind this
spongy layer, the concrete was black and looked as if it had been
badly smoked. The combustible material in the center of this
layer was caked. Back of this layer was a strip 3 to 3J inches wide
showing no discoloration, but the mortar was whiter than the normal
concrete, indicating that the uncombined water had been driven
away. The remainder of the beam was apparently normal.

' 'Vertical cracks running back from the fired face were found
in only two or three cases and extended back only 2 to 4 inches.
The surface had a very dead sound and could be easily crumbled,
while the back of the beam was unaffected and had the usual metallic
sound.

Panel 18. Material. "Panel 18, Fig. 115, was made up of short
lengths of plain granite-concrete beams 8 to 11 inches in cross-sec-
tion and in lengths varying from 18 inches to 2J feet. The concrete
was a 1 : 2 : 4 mixture of 'typical Portland' cement, Meramec River
sand, and Missouri red granite. The stone was screened to pass
a j-inch screen and be retained on a J-inch screen. The panel was
laid up in fire clay with broken joints. The specimens were laid
on their 8-inch side, thus exposing the 11-inch face to the fire.

Test. "The test occurred on June 10, 1907, and firing continued
for 2 hours and J minute. After firing the face of the panel was
quenched with water at 51° F. for 5 minutes.

"In 15 minutes snapping was noted, which continued for about
5 minutes. At 25 minutes hot water was forced back through the
joints and washed off the fire clay, which held the back wall ther-
mometers in place. This water was considerably warmer than the
back wall surface, consequently the thermometers there attached
showed unduly high temperatures. At 40 minutes the top of the
panel began to dry out, the bottom portion still remaining wet
with the water which leaked through the joints. At 63 minutes a
slight spalling was observed in several places, principally at the
top of the wall. At 75 minutes the back wall face of the panel had
entirely dried out, but steam came through the joints on the top.
During the remainder of the time no further change was noted.

"The temperatures of the furnace observed during the two-
hour test were from 1,300° to 1,700° F.

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

201

Results. "After quenching with water it was found that some
portions of the surface of the concrete had spalled and had been
washed away, while in other places the surface was nearly all intact
and the mortar still adhered; but it was cracked and crumbled

Fig. 116. Appearance After Test of Panel Containing Gravel-Concrete Beams

easily in the fingers. The exposed surfaces of the stone were found
to be of a cloudy whitish color and quite hard, although more easily
broken than the unchanged stone. The stone had whitened to a
depth of about 1 inch and the mortar to about 3J inches.

"Vertical cracks running back from the fired face occurred
about 4 to 6 inches apart, and extended back from the face about

202 FIRE PREVENTION

4 inches. By tapping with a hammer, the beam could be broken
where these cracks occurred. The surface had a very dead sound
when tapped with the hammer, but the back was apparently normal.

Panel 19. Material. "Panel 19, Fig. 116, was composed of
similar sized sections of gravel-concrete beams, laid as described for
panel 18. The mixture and consistency were the same as in panel
18, being 1:2:4 medium consistency. The gravel passed a |-inch
screen and was retained on a J-inch screen, and was of the Meramec
Flint variety.

Test. "The test took place on June 11, 1907, at 2:25 P.M., and
continued for 2 hours 3 minutes, followed by quenching with water
at 53° F. for 5 minutes. At the outset the temperature at the top
of the panel seemed higher than that at the bottom.

"In 16 minutes water came through the joints on the back of
the wTall and ran down, washing away the fire clay holding the ther-
mometer in place. Up to 25 minutes no snapping had taken place.
At 45 minutes the greater part of the surface of the concrete had
spalled and pitted in small spots. These pits exposed small
stones which had probably cracked and expanded sufficiently to
force the mortar away from the face. At 80 minutes the pitting and
cracking away of the small portions of the surface was very general
over the lower and left-hand side of the panel. No further change
was noted and the surface of the panel seemed to resist any further
pitting.

"The temperatures of the furnace observed during the two-
hour test were from 1,500° to 1,900° F.

Results. "Fig. 116 shows the face of the panel after the test.
On the application of water the surface washed away on the lower
and left side of the panel, while on the upper and right side of
the panel the surface was less severely affected. Particles of
gravel were discolored to a depth of 2| to 3 inches, turning a
dark reddish-brown, while the mortar surrounding them remained
about normal. Many gravel stones on the surface had split, but
were apparently as hard as the sound ones. Vertical cracks from
2 to 4 inches ran back from the face to a distance of about 3
inches.. These cracks could be opened up by tapping, and the
layer containing the discolored gravel could be cracked off from
the surface of the beam with a hammer. The back portions of the

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION

203

beams were not affected and had a solid metallic ring, while the fired
side sounded dead when struck with a hammer. Where the mortar
had not been washed away the surface was covered with fine hair
cracks and the material could be crumbled in the fingers. The

Fig. 117. Appearance After Test of Panel Containing Cinder-Concrete Beams

gravel under this coating of mortar was not cracked but was some-
what discolored. s' ^

Panel 20. Material. "Panel 20, Fig. 117, was made up of \\-
inch to 2|-foot lengths of cinder concrete beams, 8 by 11 inches in sec-
tion, laid on the 8-inch face. The concrete was of 'typical Portland'
cement, Meramec River sand, and soft coal cinders, containing 24.5

204 FIRE PREVENTION

per cent of combustible material. The proportions were 1 : 2 : 4 by
volume. The cinders were screened to pass a If -inch screen and
be retained on a ^-inch screen. The top row in the panel was com-
posed of granite, gravel, and terra-cotta tile and was put in merely
to fill up the space due to a shortage of the cinder specimens.

Test. "The panel was fired at 11:54 A.M., June 17, 1907, for
2 hours and 2f minutes, and was cooled by quenching with water
57° F. for 5 minutes.

"In 7 minutes the concrete snapped quite badly and one or two
small explosions forced off small portions of the surface of the beams.
No. 7 was more exposed than usual on account of the fire clay mount-
ing being cracked off by a piece of the surface of the cinder concrete
which blew across the furnace. At 18 minutes all of the cinder-
concrete surface had begun to pit and pieces about 1 inch in area
and | to J inch in depth fell out. A piece on the second row from
the bottom, about 6 inches square and f inch in depth, was forced
off with considerable violence,, exposing several pieces of unburned
coal. This was followed by several small explosions, and a piece
of the surface about 8 inches square and f inch thick just adjoining
the above-mentioned piece, came off. Small bright red spots from
which flames issued were distributed over the surface. At 30 min-
utes the burners became more or less clogged from the small pieces
of concrete which had fallen into them. This somewhat impaired
the control of the furnace. At 40 minutes the spalling became
general over the surface and many small pieces of concrete con-
tinued to fall from the panel. The color became bright red and the
small spots were no longer visible.

"The temperatures of the furnace observed during the two-
hour test were from 1,400° to 1,700° F.

Results. "On removal of the door it was found that the greater
part of the surface of the cinder concrete had cracked off; during
the application of water a considerable portion of the surface was
washed away, apparently to about the same depth (\ inch).
A very small portion of the face of each beam was still intact, but
this portion was porous and crumbled easily in the hand. The sur-
face was rough and the concrete spongy and black to a depth of
about 1 inch. The mortar in this layer was easily crumbled in the
fingers. A layer 3 to 4 inches thick back of this was discolored,

FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 205

being turned almost black, and the particles of combustible material
were practically turned to coke. The mortar in this layer was
apparently hard. The remainder of the beam was about normal.

"Fig. 117 shows the face of the panel after testing. A few ver-
tical cracks running back from the face of the beams were not very
regular and did not open up readily when tapped rather hard with
a hammer. The face of the concrete crumbled when tapped, while
the back gave a good sound metallic ring. The affected portion —
that is, a layer about 2J inches thick — could be separated from the
unaltered portion by tapping on the edges of the piece."

Further Tests. In a paper presented before the National Fire
Protection Association by Leonard C. Wason, President Aberthaw
Construction Company, on Reinforced Concrete as a Fireproof Build-
ing Material, the writer states :

"The maximum depth of pitting observed by the writer in
actual fire tests where a temperature of 1,700° F. or more has
been maintained for a period of five hours, has been either in walls or
ceilings 1 inch to 1| inches. Also by the examination of actual
conflagrations, such as that at Baltimore and elsewhere, it has been
apparent that the prearranged fire tests are more severe in the re-
sults shown by the structure than actual conflagrations.

"Before concrete will disintegrate when exposed to fire the
large amount of moisture chemically combined in the setting of the
cement — being 20 to 25 per cent of its weight — has to be driven off
by heat and then the vapor thus driven off', has to be evaporated
from the pores of the concrete before it becomes sufficiently hot to
crumble. The slowness of evaporating this vapor is probably the
cause of concrete resisting extremely high temperatures for a few
hours, while a much lower temperature, if long continued, would
ultimately disintegrate it. Cement will resist 500° F. for an in-
definite period while a continuous temperature of 700° F. is disas-
trous. The cement coating of the stones of the concrete will resist
the attack of fire so long that it is of less consequence whether the
stone can be damaged by fire or not. Thus pure limestone is a
most excellent aggregate and will not decompose until after the
cement, and after the cement has gone it is immaterial what ag-
gregate is used, for the work has then failed any way." ******

INDEX

American vs. foreign fire losses I, 58

Architects, attitude of II, 51

Baltimore fire I, 10

Building conditions in American cities II, 12

comparisons of conditions here and in Europe II, 14

good buildings skimped II, 13

large proportion of poor buildings II, 12

Building construction, evolution of II, 55

corrugated and plate floor construction II, 63

early forms II, 55

mill construction II, 64

other retardants II, 69

reinforced concrete II, 72

steel-frame buildings II, 69

steel and tile vs. reinforced concrete II, 80

stone and brick II, 57

tile protection II, 60

unprotected iron and steel II, 57

Building materials, standard tests of II, 136

Building, labeling II, 5

"City unburnable" a possibility II, 44

attitude of architects II, 51

municipal building regulations II, 45

Concrete from the fire-resisting standpoint II, 151

concrete as a building material II, 151

behavior under fire II, 152

Portland cement concrete II, 151

quality of II, 152

reinforced concrete II, 151

construction developments due to concrete II, 153

applications of concrete II, 154

early forms II, 153

fire-resisting qualities II, 159

Concrete blocks II, 189

Concrete buildings II, 187

2 INDEX

PART PAGE

"Concrete" fires II, 166

concrete cottage at Winthrop beach II, 179

Dayton motor car works II, 169

F. B. Klock building II, 183

F. W. Tunnell and Company building II, 175

Huyler candy factory II, 166

McCray, Morrison and Company elevator II, 186

N. F. P. A. report II, 187

Pacific coast borax company's building II, 186

Peavey Elevator Company II, 166

Rubber reclaiming manufacturing plant II, 184

Thompson and Norris building. . . II, 175

Conflagrations I, 2

Baltimore fire I, 10

San Francisco fire calamity I, 26

Corrugated and plate floor construction. II, 63

Fire, causes of I, 75

new inventions bring new hazards I, 77

primary I, 75

secondary I, 76

Fire, havoc of I, 51

American vs. foreign fire losses I, 58

analysis of fire losses in U. S I, 59

comparative figures. I, 65

losses in treeless states vs. losses in timber states I, 63

depletion of timber and iron supply and its remedy. I, 67

fireproof construction the only adequate protection I, 71

one year's fire losses I, 55

waste of life and property * I, 51

Fire extinction I, 80

Fire and fire losses I, 1-94

causes of fire I, 75

conflagrations I, 2

fire extinction I, 80

fire's havoc . I, 51

insurance idea I, 82

Fire limits II, 47

Fire records and tests II, 166

"concrete" fires II, 166

laboratory tests. II, 193

Fire-resisting qualities II, 159

Fireproof building II, 32, 97

building code. II, 132

contents and finish of buildings II, 36

INDEX 3

Fireproof building PABT PAGE

division of building into isolated units II, 36

external light-courts II, 106

fireproof homes II, 115

fireproof house plans II, 121

furnishings II, 111

general fireproof features II, 109

halls and exits II, 106

ornamental surfaces II, 97

outside walls II, 97

piers and foundations II, 103

popular misconceptions II, 33

non-combustible material II, 33

unprotected iron and steel II, 33

roofing II, 103

shafts II, 108

special requirements II, 111

assembly halls II, 113

church II, 113

hotels II, 113

theater II, 111

stairs and elevator shafts II, 106

steel and tile or concrete frame II, 41

structural parts II, 105

floors II, 105

tile protection II, 105

use of wood II, 108

wall finish II, 109

wall openings II, 99

door and window shutters II, 99

skylights and transoms II, 102

wire glass, metal doors, and other protective features II, 43

Fireproof construction II, 1-205

"city unburnable" a possibility II, 44

concrete from the fire-resisting standpoint II, 151

fire records and tests II, 166

fireproof building in detail II, 97

our national progress II, 55

present building conditions in American cities II, 12

retarding fires II, 145

standard tests of building materials II, 136

stimulus to good building II, 1

value of II, 15

fireproofing as an investment II, 16

importance of good design II, 16

insurance vs. fireproof construction II, 20

what is fireproof building II, 32

4 INDEX

J PART PAGE

Insurance vs. fireproof construction II, 20

fallacious arguments against fireproofmg TI, 25

fireproofing real economy II, . 27

ignorance retards spread of fireproof methods II, 29

Insurance idea I, 82

Iron and steel (unprotected) II, 57

Laboratory tests to determine fire resisting qualities, etc. II, 193

further tests II, 205

panel 17 II, 196

materials II, 196

results II, 197

test II, 197

panel 18 II, 200

. material II, 200

results II, 201

test II, 200

panel 19 II, 202

material II, 202

results II, 202

test II, 202

panel 20 II, 203

material II, 203

results II, 204

test II, 204

Legislative control of building II, 2

Metal doors II, 43

Mill construction II, 64

Municipal building regulations II, 45

fire limits II, 47

inspection II, 47

N. F. P. A. report II, 187

concrete blocks II, 189

concrete buildings II, 187

National progress in fireproof construction II, 55

Neighboring liability I, 93 II, 6

Reinforced concrete II, 72

concrete design not yet standardized II, 76

concrete a potent material II, 72

limitations of concrete II, 78

INDEX 5

Reinforced concrete PART PAQB

skilled labor and great care necessary II, 76

uses of cement II, 74

Retarding fires II, 145

San Francisco fire calamity I, 26

Steel-frame buildings II, 69

Steel and tile or concrete frame II, 41

Steel and tile vs. reinforced concrete II, 80

Stimulus to good building II, 1

labeling buildings II, 5

legislative control II, 2

neighboring liability II, 6

public opinion II, 6

remission of taxes II. 4

Table

fire data (foreign) I, 58

fire data United States I, 59

fire loss per capita — United States I, 64

fire loss in timber states I, 63

fire loss in treeless states I, 63

great fires of the past 80 years. . . I, 9

Taxes, remission of II, 4

Tile protection. II, 60

Wire glass II, 43

The School Behind the Book

THIS practical handbook is one of the representatives of
the American School of Correspondence. It is the only
kind of representative by which the School reaches the
general public and extends its educational work.

The American School of Correspondence is chartered, under
the same laws as a State University, as an educational institution.
Its instruction books, written especially to suit the needs of men
seeking self-improvement through correspondence work, are
reserved for its students and for class use in educational institu-
tions; many of these texts are used in the class room work of the
^est resident schools in the country.

However, in order that the large number of ambitious men,
for whom class work and correspondence study are neither prac-
tical nor advisable, may not be deprived of this valuable material,
it is published by the School both in sets covering the several
branches that it teaches, and in a series of single Home Study
volumes treating of specialized lines of practical knowledge. This
book is a sample of the make-up of the Home Study volumes and
the titles and authors are shown on the following page. By this
method the School broadens its field of activity; and from these
sales it derives an income to use in general educational work.

The School's publications are clear and practical, and will
be found ideal for reference and home reading. For those, how-
ever, who desire more systematic study of the subjects in which
they are particularly interested, the School advises a thorough
course by correspondence as the quickest and surest means of
obtaining the practical knowledge desired. ,

The School offers correspondence instruction in all branches
of architecture, civil engineering, college preparatory work, account-
ing and business administration, drawing and design, electrical
engineering, fire prevention and insurance, American law, mechan-
ical, sanitary, and steam engineering, and textile manufacturing.
It adapts its courses to the needs of the individual, by starting him
where his previous education stopped, and giving him only such
work as is necessary to fit him for the work he wants to do.

On request the School will mail to any address a Bulletin
containing full information regarding its courses and methods.
It employs no representative other than its own publications.

AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE

CHICAGO, U. S. A.

American School of Correspondence

PRACTICAL HANDBOOKS FOR HOME STUDY

OWING to a constant and increasing demand for
low-priced single volumes covering the sub-
jects treated in the courses and cyclopedias
of the American School of Correspondence, a
series of practical handbooks have been com-
piled to be sold through the Book Stores all over the
world. If any purchaser finds that his local dealer does
not carry the particular title which interests him, he
can order direct from the publisher, who will make
shipment on receipt of price. If, after five days' exam-
ination, the volume is found unsuited to his need, the
purchaser may return it and his money will be promptly
refunded.

Partial List of Titles and Authors

PRICE

Alternating- Current Machinery William Esty $3.00

Architectural Drawing and Lettering Bourne- von Hoist-Brown 1.50

Bank Bookkeeping Charles A. Sweetland 1.00

Boiler Accessories Walter S. Leland___ 1.00

Bridge Engineering — Roof Trusses Frank O. Dufour 3.00

Building and Flying an Aeroplane Charles B. Hay ward 1.00

Building Superintendence Edward Nichols 1.50

Business Management, Part I James B. Griffith 1.50

.Business Management, Part II Russell-Griffith 1.50

Carpentry Gilbert Townsend 1.50

Care and Operation of Automobiles Morris A. Hall 1.00

Commercial Law John A. Chamberlain 3.00

Compressed Air Lucius I. Wightman 1.00

Contracts and Specifications James C. Plant 1.00

Corporation Accounts and the Voucher System. _ James B. Griffith _ 1.00

Cotton Spinning _' Charles C. Hedrick 3.00

Department Store Accounts __ Charles A. Sweetland _ _ _ 1.50

Descriptive Astronomy - -Forest Ray Moulton_ _ _ 1.50

Dynamo-Electric Machinery. _ _ F. B. Crocker _ 1.50

Electric Railways Henry H. Norris 1.50

The Electric Telegraph ..Thorn-Collins 1.00

Partial List of Titles and Authors— Continued

PJRICE

Electric Wiring and Lighting Knox-Shaad $1.00

Estimating Edward Nichols _ 1.00

Factory Accounts Hathaway-Griffith 1.50

Forging John Lord Bacon. _ .__ 1.00

Foundry Work __Wm. C. Stimpson 1.00

Freehand and Perspective Drawing -.Everett-Lawrence _ 1.00

The Gasoline Automobile . _ Lougheed-Hall 2.00

Gas Engines and Producers __ Marks- Wyer . 1.00

Heating and Ventilation Charles L. Hubbard 1.50

Highway Construction __ Phillips-Byrne _ 1.00

Hydraulic Engineering ._Turneaure-Black 3.00

Insurance and Real Estate Accounts. _ _ _ Charles A. Sweetland 1.50

Knitting __M. A. Metcalf__ _ 3.00

Machine Design __ Charles L. Griffin __ _ 1.50

Machine-Shop Work __ Frederick W. Turner, . _ 1.50

Masonry and Reinforced Concrete Webb-Gibson 3.00

Masonry Construction L Phillips-Byrne 1.00

Mechanical Drawing Ervin Kenison 1.00

Modern American Homes H. V. von Hoist 3.00

Motion Pictures __ David S. Hulfish 4.00

The Orders Bourne- von Hoist-Brown 3.00

Pattern Making James Ritchey 1.00

Plumbing Gray-Ball _ 1.50

Power Stations and Transmission Geo. C. Shaad 1.00

Practical Aeronautics Chas. B. Hayward 3.50

Practical Bookkeeping James B. Griffith 1.50

Practical Lessons in Electricity Millikan-Knox-Crocker _ 1.50

Reinforced Concrete Webb-Gibson 1.00

Railroad Engineering Walter Loring Webb 3.00

Refrigeration M. W. Arrowwood 1.00

Sewers and Drains A. Marston 1.00

Sheet Metal Work William Neubecker 3.00

Stair-Building and Steel Square Hodgson- Williams 1.00

Steam Boilers Newell-Dow 1 .00

Steam Engines L. V. Ludy 1.00

Steam Turbines Walter S. Leland 1.00

Steel Construction E. A. Tucker 1.50

Strength of Materials Edward Rose Maurer 1.00

Surveying , Alfred E. Phillips 1.50

Telephony Miller-McMeen 4.00

Textile Chemistry and Dyeing Louis A. Olney , 3.00

Textile Design Fenwick Umpleby 3.00

Tool Making __ Edward R. Markham ___ 1.50

Valve Gears and Indicators L. V. Ludy 1.00

Water Supply Frederick E. Turneaure_ _ 1.00

Weaving H. William Nelson 3.00

Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Ashley-Hayward 1.00

Woolen and Worsted Finishing John F. Timmerman 3.00

Woolen and Worsted Spinning Miles Collins 3.00

RECEIVED

••

2002

®s

TU 6818!

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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Full text of "Fireproof construction; an authoritative presentation of the fire prevention problem, giving the historical development of the art of safe building, and the best modern practice in fireproof and fire-resisting construction,by F. W. Fitzpatrick... and Theodore L. Condron.."

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