The Hawera Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1927. TIRE PREVENTION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 April 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1927. TIRE PREVENTION.

Delivered every evening by 5 -/dock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton Hurleyville, Paten, Waveriey, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere. Fraser Road and Ararata

The public will be surprised to learn that there is yet one more instance of its apathy towards the welfare of the community as a whole; this time it is tire prevention.- The man in the street cannot help but know that he is irresponsible in regard to such matters affecting the public weal as health, politics and municipal affairs, because he is constantly being told so in one way or another. There are health weeks to remind him that disease is preventable, a general election every three years to remind him that polities, though not preventable, demand liis intelligent consideration, and local body elections which give him an opportunity to voice his opinion as to how the affairs of his district should be conducted, but so far no serious effort has been made to bring homo to him the enormous wastage that occurs annually through the destructive agency of lire. It comes, therefore, as something of a novelty, if not exactly a shock, to be told by the Dominion inspector of fire brigades that New Zealanders as a people display “appalling apathy” in regard to fire prevention, but a moment’s reflection is sufficient to make us realise that if there is any proportion of preventable fires amongst the number which make their annual toll upon property, Captain Hugo is thoroughly justified in the assertion he makes and in the claim he puts forward for a campaign to be launched with the object of enlightening the public upon the subject of common causes of fires and their prevention. In a statement made in Wellington last week, Captain Hugo said that the question of fire prevention represented a very serious problem and one which should receive the attention of others than the brigades themselves. There is too much carelessness, the Chief Inspector asserts, and he hints, though ho refrains from making a direct recommendation on the subject, that it would repay the country to set up a commission to go into the question. Though he says nothing very definite on the latter point, he does not hesitate to recommend that a Fire Prevention Week should be organised, either separately or in conjunction with Health Week, and that by means of lectures and, it may be assumed, other forms of propaganda, endeavour to enlighten the people regarding the unnecessary risks they run. The public has grown to look upon fire as one of the risks which must be taken so long as people live and work in buildings, but if by adopting simple safeguards the risk can be reduced, there is every reasan why those whose business it is to study the best means of preventing and fighting the ravages of fire, should be encouraged in their desire to give the public the benefit of their experience. This is not a question for the metropolitan centres alone, as the fire losses for a year demonstrate. In 1924. the latest year for which statistics are given in the Year Hook, the gross loss totalled a few thousands over £1,000,000, and the four centres were responsible for only a little over half of that amount. Taken at their face value, those figures mean that in 1924 [the smaller towns of the Dominion suffered damage running into half a million through fire, and as it may be taken for granted that the dwellers in the provincial centres are no more intelligent or careful than those who live in the cities, we may assume that the inspector’s remarks regarding the need for some form of propaganda to awaken the people to the unnecessary risks they run, are as applicable to the people living in towns of 5000 population as they are to the inhabitants of cities of 100 000. If Captain Hugo’s suggestions are acted upon in the four main centres it will be probably found that the smaller municipalities and fire boards will be more than willing to co-operate in the campaign to spread knowledge of the first principles of fire prevention.