UNEVENTFUL YEAR

Evening Star, Issue 23461, 29 December 1939, Page 7

UNEVENTFUL YEAR

DUNEDIN FIRE BRIGADE NO SERIOUS OUTBREAKS An entire absence of serious during the year is reported by the Fire Brigade. One or two outbreaks threatened to develop into something serious, but in every case an early alarm saved the situation, and to this fact is attributed the absence of serious damage. New apparatus supplied this year is the self-contained breathing apparatus, known as the “ half-hpur ” type, which replaces the older kind Of smoke helmet to which air was supplied by medium of a pipe line. The older apparatus will still be carried as supplementary gear. Calls affecting property and motor vehicles totalled 140, and chimney fires mini bored 172. There were 106 rubbish, gorse. and grass fires, and , the remainder of the 597 calls received during the year were false alarms. Of these 39 were malicious, 47 justifiable, 77 automatic, and 16 accidental. The total number of calls remains about the average, that for the 12 months ending last March being 598. There has been a growing number of fires in dwellings caused by spontaneous combustion, and traceable to the habit of leaving polishing rags in cupboards. ' Most polishes have a basis of vegetable oils, and these are dangerous when a rag impregnated with any of them is left neglected for some time. Other causes of fires are as usual. Most outbreaks in motor vehicles were caused by back-firing through the carburettor, or short-cir-cuits in the electric wiring. Fires in outhouses were, for the most part, wholly preventable, and could be traced to sparks and back-dmught from copper fires. Dropped lighted matches and cigarette butts took their usual toll.