FIRE PREVENTION 



3161 



Fire-making. 1. Chinese flint, steel, and bag of tinder. 2. Early 19th cen- 

 tury strike-a-light. 3. Steel mill, formerly used in coal mines for striking a light. 

 4. Tinder box with flint and steel. 5 and 6. Fire drills, making friction between 

 hard and soft wood 



other, wall fireplaces were the rule, 

 since a central hearth in any but 

 the topmost room would have been 

 an impossibility. 



Extant specimens show that 

 these fireplaces were recesses in the 

 wall surmounted by round arches. 

 There was no chimney shaft ; the 

 smoke escaped by a short flue lead- 

 ing almost directly to a small verti- 

 cal opening in the outside wall, 

 concealed in the angle of a but- 

 tress. In one-storeyed buildings 

 the central hearth was often used, 

 and this type of fireplace persisted 

 until late in the 16th century. The 

 great hall at Richmond Palace, 

 and the hall at Penshurst Place, 

 Kent, retain examples. 



The opening in the roof, through 

 which the smoke was carried, was 

 protected by a small turret, or 

 louvre, which kept out the rain 

 while allowing the smoke to 

 escape. Chimney shafts began to 

 appear about the middle of the 

 13th century, but were not carried 

 above the level of the eaves until 

 considerablv later, and it was not 



until Elizabethan times that the 

 chimney stack was developed as an 

 architectural feature. Then the 

 number of fireplaces greatly in- 

 creased, calling for a correspond- 

 ing enlargement and beautification 

 of stacks to contain the flues. 



Gothic fireplaces are generally 

 treated in the simplest manner. 

 The hood, sometimes with corbels, 

 is the chief and only decoration of 

 most 13th century fireplaces, and 

 the single square -framed arch 

 which followed it was equally 

 devoid of ornament. The Renais- 

 sance brought the architectural 

 chimney-piece and elaborate over- 

 mantel, and though there was a 

 return to greater simplicity in the 

 Later Renaissance, the taste for 

 a decorated fireplace had taken 

 firm hold. See Building ; Chimney- 

 piece ; Chimney Shaft ; House ; 

 also illus. pp. 1948 and 1949. 



Fire Prevention. Fire preven- 

 tion systems are of two classes : 

 those directed to the prevention of 

 an outbreak, and those designed to 

 deal promptly with one when it has 



FIREPROOFING 



already occurred. The former are 

 chiefly structural and are mostly 

 represented by the use of non-in- 

 flammable materials in the erec- 

 tion of buildings. If the floor, the 

 walls, and the roof or ceiling of a 

 room can be made of materials 

 which do not readily take fire, the 

 contents of the room may be 

 destroyed by fire without serious 

 risk to other parts of the building. 

 Iron, notwithstanding its great 

 strength and structural value in 

 building, is not a good fire-resisting 

 material. It will bend and twist and 

 bring about the collapse of a whole 

 building ; and even where it re- 

 tains its position and form in the 

 course of a fire while merely ex- 

 posed to the heat, it may be almost 

 instantly destroyed by being 

 drenched while hot with water 

 from the fire hose. Hence, in the 

 modern " fireproof " building, while 

 iron or steel is very largely used, it 

 is invariably enclosed in some form 

 of protective covering brickwork, 

 concrete, or cement which will 

 shield it from the direct action of a 

 fire. The extensive use in modern 

 buildings of reinforced concrete is 

 due not alone to the moderate cost 

 of that system of construction, but 

 also to the fact that it is so largely 

 fire-resisting. The general and un- 

 avoidable use of wood in buildings 

 still constitutes a serious fire risk 

 nearly everywhere, and not least on 

 board ship; but timber is much 

 less extensively employed than for- 

 merly, and the risk of fire may be 

 reduced by the use of wood fire- 

 proofing processes. 



To the second class of fire pre- 

 vention systems belongs a large 

 number of appliances, comprising 

 internal fire hydrants or stand- 

 pipes connected permanently to a 

 reliable source of water, which may 

 be brought into operation instantly 

 on any floor of a building and in 

 large buildings at more than one 

 point on any floor; the free pro- 

 vision of fire buckets always kept 

 filled with water and always main- 

 tained in proper number and in 

 order at definite stations ; the 

 adoption of sprinklers ; the use of 

 automatic pumps which are either 

 arranged to be driven by a separate 

 electrical connexion or by any in- 

 dependent steam service, so placed 

 and arranged that they may be put 

 into operation instantly ; chemical 

 fire extinguishers and the instal- 

 ment of automatic fire alarms 

 (<.#.). See Concrete ; Sprinkler. 



Fireproofing. The idea under- 

 lying this term is, of course, that of 

 treating a material, normally in- 

 flammable paper, fabric, or wood, 

 in such a way that it will not take 

 fire. The idea is a very old one, and 

 innumerable processes have been 



