FIRE PREVENTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVII, Issue 10807, 30 December 1926, Page 4

FIRE PREVENTION.

GREATER PRECAUTIONS URGED.

(Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, December 29. Constant reminders have been giventhat many disastrous fires would not happen if the public were more cautious, and, perhaps with the idea of impressing the lesson, the superintendent of the Auckland Fire Brigade, Mr W. Wilson, supplemented his annual warning to-day by a few derived from the year’s work of thebrigade.

The dictum of the fire world that the majority of fires ought never to happen, Mr Wilson remarked, has been fully borne out by our experience inAuckland. The majority of buildings throughout New Zealand seemed to be built for fires, he added. It was true that the more modern structures were fire resisting, but it had to be remembered 1 that this meant their construction was such as to retard fires, not necessarily to prevent them. In fact, precaution was doubly necessary in larger modem buildings. 'Whatever their construction is for, if fire did get a hold, the greater cubic capacity would naturally mean a larger fire. It was most difficult to fight fires which took a hold in high structures which had been erected on sections which formerly held much simpler buildings. A strange story was told in. the monotonous character of this year’s monthly lists of causes of fire outbreaks. They were remarkably similar and suggested that little llieed was taken of common causes of .fire. A frequent origin was the overboiling of fat and oil, and others were found in live ashes left about the premises, naked lights near benzine, sparks from! copper fires, defective hearths, matches handled by children, cigarette _ butts, smoking in bed, live pipes left in coat pockets, and dirty chimneys. Most of these showed lack of ordinary precaution, commented _Mr Wilson, and in view of the limitless consequences that were possible through even minor carelessness, people ought to exercise the strictest care. The tremendous increase in fire agents was the final point emphasised by Mr Wilson. The coming of the v motor-car and the great increase of electrical appliances had made fires much more likely in modern times than formerly ._ That additional liability* was another important reason for greater precaution ont the- p a ait off eyerybody.