BASIC PRINCIPLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 43, 20 February 1942, Page 6

BASIC PRINCIPLES

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE

The Permanent Organiser of the Wellington City Fire Watching Ser- ! vice, Mr. V. E. Hampson-Tindale, today made a statement in elaboration of the regulations which are published in today's paper. Further points will be dealt with tomorrow. ' "The fire-watching service is being instituted to prevent rather than to cure," said Mr. Hampson-Tindale. "It must be realised that the activities of the Wellington Fire Brigade must be confined to the extinguishing of major fires only in .the event of a multiplicity of outbreaks, as may occur through enemy action, and that the capacity of the brigade would pror bably be'limited to dealing with no more than three such major and simultaneous outbreaks. "It becomes imperative, therefore, to ensure, as far as possible, that the fire brigade is not called upon to undertake a task which is utterly beyond its capacity. It cannot be emphasised sufficiently that all fires are the same size at the beginning, and that if attacked in the incipient stages present but minor hazards in practically every instance. Therefore, we as citizens must become so organised as to be able instantly to combat incipient fires while these remain sufficiently small that their extinguishment is practicable by relatively untrained individuals. GUARDING ATTACK. "The incendiary bomb is, in the early stages, as dangerous as the Roman candle of Guy Fawke's Day, but the placing of either the bomb or the Roman candle adjacent to combustible materials and leaving either unattended is to invite disaster. "One of two methods must be employed. Either the danger must be removed to a place of safety, or, alternatively, it must be extinguished. "Either of the above operations can be performed in most cases if the job is completed within the first two minutes of the visitor's arrival; thus, theoretically, in the event of an incendiary raid, it should be possible to ensure that no major fires develop from the nuclei of incendiary bombs, always provided that individuals are available in sufficient numbers to be able to effect remedial measures within the first two minutes of the bomb's ignition. "Certain exemptions there are to the above, namely, in those situations, wherein are stored bulk stocks of: readily combustible materials, and such as are packed in wood, wool, and. similar substances, piles of combustible rubbish, aggregations of packing cases behind shops, lumber and records stored in ceilings, timber shavings, etc. In such instances, the arrival of an incendiary agent is followed almost immediately by a conflagration of a magnitude utterly beyond the fighting capacity of any indiyidual watcher. REMOVAL OF HAZARDS. "Therefore, such hazards must be removed wherever possible, even