NATURE 



169 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, igoi. 



FIRE PREVENTION. 



Publicalions of the British Fire Prevention Committee, 



Vols, i to iiL.iSgS to 1900. (i, Waterloo Place, S.W.) 



THE subject of Fire Prevention is somewhat curiously 

 manifold. The best mode of securing permanent 

 peace is to prepare continually for war, and the most 

 likely way to prevent fire is to have every means of 

 combating it in perfect readiness, so that at the earliest 

 symptom of danger immediate steps can be taken to 

 reduce the temperature. To secure this end knowledge 

 is necessary, and where there is real knowledge there is 

 not much difficulty. 



Buildings should be constructed of such materials and 

 in such forms as experience has proved to be necessary 

 for the safety of the contents, whether merchandise or 

 persons, and at the same time the cost must be kept 

 within such reasonable limits that the responsible public 

 or private authority may be justified in rigorously en- 

 forcing the regulations laid down for the general good. 



To construct a building, as is generally the case, with- 

 out any regard to its safety from fire, and after its com- 

 pletion to call in an expert to arrange for its protection, is 

 a most expensive and unsatisfactory proceeding. 



All the arrangements for its protection should be 

 shown on the original working drawings before a single 

 brick is laid, or even the foundation prepared; and, where 

 this is done with knowledge, no expense whatever, or, at 

 worst, a minimum of expense, will be incurred. 



For the protection of merchandise a building can be 

 so divided by fire-proof partitions that the contents of 

 any compartment in it may be burnt out without affecting 

 any other compartment, even when no external aid for 

 extinguishing a fire is available, and this is all that can 

 be done in the way of construction ; but there is no 

 difficulty in doing it. 



For the protection of life a building should be so 

 arranged that there shall be clear and simple modes of 

 immediate exit within the time necessary for safety in 

 accordance with the nature of the contents. 



For instance, in a carpenter's workshop in which no 

 artificial heat is used, and the light is supplied by 

 electricity, a large number of persons can have plenty of 

 time to pass out by ordinary doors in case of emergency, 

 and the same may be said of a warehouse not containing 

 inflammable stock ; but it is a very different matter 

 where volatile oils or explosives are stored and mani- 

 pulated ; or where, as in a theatre, large numbers "of 

 persons are closely packed in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of scenery or appliances likely to burst forth in 

 flame, and produce volumes of poisonous smoke within a 

 few minutes. It is much more difficult to protect life 

 than property ; but it is by no means impossible within 

 reasonable limits. Both subjects may be considered 

 separately. 



Of late years much attention has been paid by 

 architects to the materials which they use, and the result 

 has been that new materials have been invented, and 

 improved application of old materials adopted. 



The introduction of certain metals, impossible in 

 NO. 1678, VOL. 65] 



former years, but now easily available, was a great 

 advance, and the protection of these metals with concrete, 

 plaster, and other substances, has been a still further im- 

 provement, but there is something else to which attention 

 should be called. 



It may be a little invidious, and in some respects unfair, 

 to speak disparagingly of those who have gone before us, 

 and every allowance must freely be made for them ; but 

 to a practical student now observing buildings of one or 

 two generations ago, it certainly does appear that in the 

 great majority of cases there can have been no effort at 

 adaptation. 



In all our large centres of commerce and manufacture 

 hundreds of buildings may be found which were origin- 

 ally quite unsuitable to the purposes for which they were 

 used; and, even after expensive alteration and dangerous 

 patching, are by no means either economical or convenient 

 for profitable working at present. 



Latterly, however, architects seem to have studied the 

 business of their clients, and on every side we see 

 evidence of thoughtful, practical adaptation for the re- 

 quirements of every kind of service — private houses, 

 offices, warehouses for all the numerous descriptions of 

 stock, factories for all the various methods of mechanical 

 engineering, placing the fires, the forges, the lathes, the 

 stores and everything else that is necessary in the relative 

 position most suitable for speedy and economical work, 

 and churches and other buildings in which large numbers 

 of persons are assembled. There is still room for im- 

 provement in theatres ; but there are signs that this is 

 coming or will come in time. 



The great hotels and clubs of the present day com- 

 pared with those of past generations, or even those of 

 twenty years ago, are as palaces to pig-sties, and this 

 improvement is entirely the work of architects who have 

 studied the requirements of their employers. 



In the year 1882 the Secretary of State for the Home 

 Department (it is supposed at the special desire of her 

 late Majesty, Queen Victoria) requested from the 

 Metropolitan Board of Works, " A report from the Fire 

 Brigade as to the actual condition of the London theatres 

 in respect of security from fire, stating what additional 

 precautions they think necessary to be taken to prevent 

 loss of life in case of conflagration ; " and in the summer 

 of that year, Captain Shaw, the chief officer of the 

 Brigade, made a detailed report on each of the forty-one 

 theatres then existing. 



This report is much too long and too full of detail for 

 insertion here ; but a few extracts from his " general 

 remarks" at the end may be instructive. 



" In dealing with the exits from theatres it is necessary 

 to call attention to the perversity of ingenuity which 

 characterises the arrangements of several houses for 

 getting away. In some cases, where a whole building 

 intervenes between the auditorium and the street, and 

 the space actually existing is more than ample for the 

 escape of an audience, every exertion seems to have been 

 used to make the passages, corridors, landings and stairs 

 as complex and tortuous as possible ; and, having done 

 this, then to obstruct them and make them still more in- 

 convenient by pay-boxes, cloak-rooms, barriers, refresh- 

 ment-counters, single or double steps and partial walls, 

 thus causing nightly confusion and annoyance to the 

 visitors, and adding, moreover, very considerably to their 

 risk in case of panic from fire or any other cause." 



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