364 CONSERVATION 



may be pruned rather than felled. To comprehend the magnitude of 



Standing trees must be not less than six this fire loss, Mr. Baker asks us to 



feet apart. picture a city street, on lots with an 



The Forest Park Reservation Com- average frontage of sixty-five feet, and 



mission is made the administrative with buildings placed closely together, 



body, with power to authorize the omis- This street would be a thousand miles 



sion of a fire line or to enforce the long, and would reach from New York 



construction of such lines, the decision City to Chicago. At every thousand 



of the commission in all such cases be- feet would be found the ruins of a 



ing final. building from which an injured person 



Copies of this act may be obtained was rescued ; at every three-quarters of 



from Mr. Alfred Gaskill, Forester, a mile, the blackened wreck of a house 



Trenton, N. J., and may well serve in which some one was burned to death, 



as the basis of similar legislation in Let this fire begin on January i and 



other states where fires are frequently be driven by a high wind ; eating its 



kindled by sparks or hot cinders from way forward at a rate of nearly three 



locomotives. The lessons taught by the miles a day, it would have to burn for 



experiences of recent years, notably of a year before consuming the entire 



last fall, regarding damages from for- double row of buildings. On finishing 



est fires thus kindled should not be for- this street at midnight on December 31, 



gotten. If they lead, as they are ap- I 9^7, it would immediately begin upon 



parently leading in New Jersey, to the a second, similar street, burning it 



enactment and enforcement of appro- throughout the entire year of 1908. 



priate protective legislation the great Nor is this the showing for an excep- 



loss resulting from these fires may, in tionally bad year. "The statistics of 



part at least, in the future be compen- fire losses gathered for many years by 



sated. the National Board of Fire Underwrit- 



M M M ers show that the annual fire loss has 



been steadily increasing." In the ten 



years ending with 1887, the annual loss 



waste ol Resources Uue to rire , &,~ ,, 



averaged $92,000,000 ; in the ten years 



AT THE recent joint meeting of four ending with 1897, it averaged $132,- 



great national engineering societies 000,000; and, in the following decade, 



held in New York City, Mr. Charles $203,000,000. 



Whiting Baker spoke from an engi- Let us compare our fire loss with 



neer's standpoint of the meaning of the that of European countries. The losses 



continuous waste of property due to for the people of the United States in 



fire. His paper, as published in Insnr- 1907 "represented an annual per cap- 



ance Engineering for April, deserves a ita tax of $2.50 on every man, woman 



resume. and child in the population," or $15 



The fire losses of the United States on every head of a family of six per- 



for 1907 totaled $215,000,000. About sons. The per capita fire loss in the 



half this loss was upon buildings principal European countries reads : 



burned or injured; the other half was Italy, 12 cents; France, 30 cents; Aus- 



upon contents. One thousand four tria, 29 cents ; Germany, 49 cents. "It 



hundred persons lost their lives in fires is only in Russia and Norway, where 



and 5,650 were injured. These fires oc- wooden buildings form a considerable 



curred in 165,250 buildings, and the portion of the whole, that the fire 



average damage to each building and loss per capita approaches even half 



its contents was $1,667. I* 1 addition to of our own per capita rate." 



these direct losses by fires were indirect A chief cause of this loss Mr. Baker 



losses, as through interruption to busi- finds in the disposition of our people, 



ness, maintenance of fire departments, including our engineers, to "run on in 



insurance companies, etc. a rut." Wooden buildings were once 



