154 THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND EIRE. 
be reduced to a minimum by ample provision for fire prevention. 
As far as practicable, combustible material should be eliminated. 
Several of the fine so-called fireproof buildings in San Francisco were 
injured chiefly by the burning of their wooden trim, floors, doors, 
office furniture, papers, books, carpets, rugs, etc. Wooden floors have 
proved to be dangerous and objectionable; but in some places non- 
combustible wood may be used for them and for the interior trim, 
as, for example, where the heat could never be very great. Metal 
trim, doors, windows, sash, and casings, together with plate glass, or, 
better, wire glass, may confine a fire to a single room, preventing a 
general combustion. Adequate fire-extinguishing apparatus — such as 
fire hose, always connected with good water pressure, wells with auto- 
matic pumps, and tanks in the basement or upon the roof, with pipe 
connections — was lacking in nearly all of San Francisco's buildings, 
even in those of the highest class. In the California Electric Com- 
pany's building the standpipes, with attached hose, the well, pump, 
and tank in the basement, and the roof tank, together with the metal 
sash and the wire-glass windows, proved the value of such a private 
system, saving that property from the hot fire around it, though 
every adjacent structure was burned. As this building was not fire- 
proof, the value of the fire-extinguishing system can be well under- 
stood, and had all the large establishments been equally well equipped 
the conflagration would have been quickly checked and a vast amount 
of property saved. Automatic sprinklers connected with the above- 
mentioned plant will afford excellent fire protection within and will 
greatly reduce insurance rates. 
While the fire danger from exterior fires to a given building is 
ordinarily estimated at 60 per cent, this risk practically becomes 100 
per cent, of course, in a great conflagration. In San Francisco little 
protection from exterior fires had been adopted. There were few 
metal shutters or steel roller shutters, and most of those were of 
imperfect design, proving unsatisfactory Avhen tested. The open- 
ings in walls were fatal points of weakness in all the great buildings. 
Wire-glass windows, though few in number, behaved well, but 
wooden instead of metal sashes were great sources of fiery contagion. 
Metal covering over wooden doors and window frames was generally 
inefficient. Ordinary glass was quickly cracked by heat from the 
exterior; the sashes took fire and the flames rushed in through the 
openings, consuming all combustible material within. Many of the 
best buildings were gutted in this manner. Had they been furnished 
with metallic shutters of the best design, with wire glass in metal 
sashes, and with cornice and other exterior sprinklers, supplied by a 
private water plant, they certainly might have been saved. Thus 
the employees of the United States mint (PL XXXVIII), with a 
