SMALL FIRES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 117, 20 May 1942, Page 6

SMALL FIRES

MUST BE FOUGHT

EVERYBODY'S JOB

"Fight fire while it is small" was the principle upon which every person must base his plans of action for the city's and his own safety if Wellington is attacked, said the Superintendent of the City Brigades, Mr. C. A. Woolley, today.

"The responsibility of fighting small fires and so preventing disastrous conflagrations is definitely upon every individual." said Mr. Woolley. "In the business and factory areas that responsibility- is pui on an ordered basis through the fire-watching system, but the same necessity exists in residential areas. Timber-built—in whole or part : —buildings and homes present high fire risks, and the people of this city have to realise the plain, hard fact that they will have to help the organised brigades and their auxiliaries to save the city if it is attacked.'"

Wellington's, total organised firefig'hting forces—regular brigades, E.F.S., E.P.S. fire sections, and fire patrols—are , today very greatly stronger than they were twelve months ago, said Mr. Woolley. The men had done excelleiv. work as trainees, the basic organisation and systems of reporting, communications between sections and districts, and the general control were worked down to a solid foundation, but a heayy attack would still threaten a most serious danger of sweeping fire—as in every city under air attack.

"This point cannot be iqo strongly emphasised when you are considering' air raid precautions for your home or for your place of business: Once a fire attains a certain size and fierceness no fire-fighting organisation, of whatever strength, can handle it effectively, for the simple reason that men working on the hose branches projecting streams of water, irrespective of size, cannot get near enough to the heart of the fire to do any good. They will fight a losing fight, and a block, instead of a building, will be lost. But that fire began as a small fire that anyone of us could have doused in the first half-minute.

"After the lessons from England, brigade officers in this country regard fire protection of the city and residential areas against fire attack as the first consideration, after life itself." ,said Mr. Woolley. "The majority of buildings in our cities are of bonfire construction —built to burn—and if outbreaks are not quickly brought under control by somebody on the spot with first-aid fire-fighting appliances every fire left untackled will quadruple itself every minute.

"Looked at either way, safety of life or safety of property, the value of an up-to-date and efficient system of fire protection, backed up by effective watching guard in wooden buildings and commercial structures with allwood interiors, and. more than that, of an instructed public right through the city, cannot be given any figure in pounds, shillings, and pence. Outside the city proper, a number of uncontrolled fires in a congested residential area could cut off hundreds of people from any way of escape. This understanding of the part of the individual and his readiness to help him-. !self and the whole city must be fully recognised," said Mr. Woolley. "The organised fire-fighting forces can do only so much." No. 1 FIRE-FIGHTER. Mr. Woolley set the emergency firefighting organisation out under three heads: — 1. The householder himself and the occupier of business premises. 2. Auxiliary firemen manning motorcars equipped with bucket pumps, hose, trucks carrying hose and branches, and the Emergency Fire Service manning trailer pumps. 3. The professional brigades. "Make no mistake which is the most important," he said. "It is definitely No. I—the householder and the occupier of business premises, the person on the spot, patching every building during the period of attack to scotch the incendiary immediately it is located, to fight the small fire, whether caused by incendiary or flying burning fragments.

"Even with the fullest co-operation of all the householders and all the occupiers of business premises fire will gain the top hand and roar up beyond amateur reach in some buildings and localities, through its being.undetected or through its being tackled with inadequate equipment or with insufficient understanding and resolution m the early stages," he said. "That is where Nos. 2 and 3, the organised firefighting forces, will come in.

"We are not passing any buck to any public; we whose business it is to protect the city from fire know only too well Uiat the finest regular and auxiliary fire service that could be devised could not control a multiplicity of fires that would sweep through city and residential blocks if citizens failed to do their part. The individual is the No. 1 fire fighter under emergency conditions."