FIRE'S HAVOC 259 



FIEE'S HAVOC A SENSELESS WASl^E C 



By F. W. PITZPATRICK 



washington, d. c. 



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 3'early carried on in the process 

 of that growth. But a careful analysis shows us that that great volume 

 of building is not all growth, but is, to a very great extent indeed, the 

 replacing of buildings that have been destroyed by fire. And that de- 

 struction, a most senseless and cruel waste, has had a proportionate 

 increase, year by year, far in excess of the pro rata of our new buildings 

 or indeed of many other details of our rapid growth. 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 contem- 

 plate a drain upon our resources that would be deemed positively in- 

 tolerable in any other country. 



Statistics from all over the world for the year 1908 are now pretty 

 nearly complete. Let us see what that year has meant in this fire 

 matter. In the forty leading cities new buildings and repairs to old 

 ones, building construction, reached a total value of $478,000,000 in 

 that year, or a grand total in all the cities and towns of $510,000,000 

 —the biggest 3'ear we ever had in our history, 1905-6 showed a total 

 of $667,000,000. iSTow then, during the same period we permitted to 

 be destroyed by fire buildings and contents to the value of $'3 18,000,000. 

 Incidentally, the reader will please remember that in most 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 affairs fuel, for instance, is 

 consumed but produces steam, power. They say that nothing is utterly 

 lost, but we also know that in this fire proposition nothing is left but 

 ashes and smoke. It is not an exchange. The destruction of vahie is 

 absolute for so far we have exceedingly little use for ashes, and smoke 

 has not yet been turned into anything commercially or scientifically 

 valuable. Add to the value of property destroyed the cost of main- 

 taining fire departments, fire-fighting apparatus, high water pressure, 

 city and private efforts at stopping fire when once it has started, some- 

 thing like $300,000,000. Then, in a further effort to recoup ourselves 

 after fire has laid waste our property, we have gambled with the in- 



