Section H. 

 ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE. 



1.— WATERWORKS CONNECTIONS FOR EXTINCTION OF 



FIRES. 



By THOMAS WALKER FOWLER, M. Inst. C.E.M., Am., Sec. C.E., 

 31. L Mech. E., tfcc. • 



Town water supplies are provided primarily for domestic or domes- 

 tic and manufacturing purposes, but when established they are available 

 for other uses also, prominent amongst which come fire-extinction, 

 street- watering, and flushing of gutters, &c. Whilst the actual quanti- 

 ties of water required for these purposes are comparatively small, to 

 obtain effective results, more especially for fire purposes, the pipes must 

 be capable of delivering large volumes of water in short periods of 

 time. As the requirements for lire-extinction are in excess of those 

 for street-watering and gutter-flushing it is intended to deal with the 

 former only in this paper. 



When a jet of water is discharged on a fierce fire it necessarily 

 passes through an intensely heated atmosphere prior to reaching the 

 actual flames, and unless the volume of the jet be considerable the 

 whole, or at least the major portion, of the water may be converted 

 into steam before reaching the fire. Hence a given discharge of water 

 is necessarily more effective when concentrated in a small number of 

 large fire streams than when divided up amongst a greater number of 

 smaller streams. In many cases, however, Australian reticulations 

 are arranged with utterly insufficient provision for this important 

 service ; and hence our fire services are hampered by a lamentable 

 want of water. Mr. Wm. Thwaites, M. Inst., C.E., Engineer-in-Chief 

 to the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, in a recent report 

 states that for good fire service in Melbourne a fire stream should 

 deliver 125galls. (that is 20 cubic feet) per minute, with a nozzle pres- 

 sure of 70lbs., and he considers that in the city provision should be made 

 for the simultaneous use of 20 such fire streams, the number being 

 reduced in the suburbs. Turneaure and Russell give as American 

 practice that in cities fire streams should discharge 250 U.S. gallons 

 per minute, and in residential suburbs 175 U.S. gallons per minute, 

 quantities which correspond to 208 and 146 imperial gallons respec- 

 tively. General Rockwell states that American horse-drawn fire 

 engines throw up to GOOgalls. per minute, and mentions self-propelled 

 engines delivering up to l,036galls. per minute ; whilst in Boston 

 arrangements have been made for jets of l,500galls. per minute. In 

 all cases these quantities are presumably U.S. gallons. 



Turneaure and Russell state that the sizes of mains and cross mains 

 in a reticulation will depend largely upon the number of fire streams 



