PREVENTION OF FIRE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21122, 24 March 1934, Page 5

PREVENTION OF FIRE

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS CRGED EDI CATION OF ( llil.DHliN There are many responsible officers who, ib a few years, will retire, and it is desirable that their positions should be filled by the most efficient men in New Zealand, according to Superintendent C. C. Warner, of the Christehureh Fire Brigade, who returned on Thursday from the conference of the New Zealand Fire Brigades', Officers' and Members' Institute. He inlol-iiied a representative of "The Press" yesterday that upon the officers coming forward would depend the future of the highly skilled work of the fire service and the institute. Already, he said, the institute had taken up a course of examinations and was endeavouring further to improve the knowledge of members of the service The executive regarded lire protection as a matter of national importance, and held that a higher grade examination should be prepared so that members could pass from the .associaleship to full membership by merit only. Need for Study Superintendent 'Warner suggested that the minimum' length of continuous service to enable candidates to si; for the associalcship and lull membership examinations should be three and live years respectively. Certain men. in all walks of life, considered themselves alter passing an examination to have readied a stage when no further knowledge was required The greatest lire chiefs in the world had entered remote lire stations to learn of some little contrivance that might serve a purpose in the more expensive apparatus of their own cities, he said. Unless the men en-

gaged in lire lighting kept constantly J in touch with developments in apparatus and scientific atlack. they would! never reach proficiency as fire engineers. New industries were constantly springing up and. with the progress of chemistry, one could never be free of learning. He knew of no profession, he said, which called for a more general knowledge than that of a lire brigade officer, for he had to study the risks to which all trades were subjected. Lessons in Schools Superintendent Warner said that n circular containing valuable lire prevention lessons, approved by the United Fire Brigades Association of New Zealand, had been compiled by Mr C. W. Malcolm, secretarv of the Taenia Fire Brigade. It stated that unless teachers rejected the idea of tire prevention as "just another fad" the results would lie worse than useless If teachers would i-eali.-o (he enormous world figures of destruction, and the appalling death roll, due annually to want of attention to fire risk 1 ;. they would enquire into the preventive mea- . ores of other countries. New Zealand had held its lirst "Fire prevention week" in 1!G1. and there was a decided halt in the lire 10.-s, due to carelessness. However, it was now wearing off. and another lire prevention Week would be held from April 1C to April 111. The chief features of the n vised lessons were simplified illustrations for the lower classes, lessons made shorter to allow for discussion by the children, more interesting elaborations of the cause.-, (if lire. and s'udics in senior classes brought into line with general science.