Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated “THE EGMONT SETTLER” Established 1890. MONDAY, MARCH 16, 1931. FIRES AND CARELESSNESS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 82, 16 March 1931, Page 4

Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated “ THE EGMONT SETTLER” Established 1890. MONDAY, MARCH 16, 1931. FIRES AND CARELESSNESS

THE statement of a superintendent of a fire brigade at a conference at Nelson last week that lack of knowledge of the public in regard to fire preventing is “lamentable” can hardly be held to be extravagant. Unfortunately it is completely confirmed by the statistical record of fires and fire losses. Lack of knowledge is, indeed, a rather euphemistic description of the carelessness on the part of the public to which are attributable hundreds of destructive fires in New Zealand every year. In a review of the causer of fires over a five-year period ended in 1929, the Census and Statistics Office states that from the results of investigation “it is plainly evident that the majority of fires are preventable and are the results of carelessness as to the immediate cause of fire or as to the contributory cause arising out of faulty construction and fitting up of buildings.” It is not necessary to hold the public directly responsible for fires that come under the last-named heading, though it is more than possible that the failure to obtain responsible supervision of construction is the real cause of many fires due to building faults. In respect of fires caused through carelessness, however, the public is entirely blameworthy. The statistics show that sparks and embers from fireplaces and kindred causes caused 5,117 fires in the period of five years and involved a loss of £322,511. The element of carelessness is very evident in no fewer than 1,05(5 of such fires, which originated in the airing of clothes before a fire, while 2,771 fires resulted from embers falling from fireplaces in private dwellings. Smoking is shown to be a prolific source of fires, 548 cases resulting from “smoking in bed,” 512 from the careless disposal of discarded cigarette ends, and 469 from the dropping of lighted matches. The use of electric devices accounted for 1,557 fires, involving a loss of £354,967, and it is significant that the majority of fires so caused were “not due to any inherent hazard as far as electricity itself is concerned,” but to faulty installation or to the careless use of appliances. The origin of 749 fires was in electric irons, ‘‘and in nearly every instance,” the report adds, “it was a case of ‘power left on.’ ” Another frequent cause of fire is the contact of naked lights with curtains, bedclothes and so on, 1,292 fires in the period falling Milder this classification, and the fact that the number of fires due to this cause shows a tendency to decrease is held to be consequent not on the exercise of greater care by the public but on the increasing extent to which electricity furnishes the Uluminant. The “use and misuse” of highly inflammable spirits and materials is another cause of fires that should in many cases have been avoided, the loss in five years being £124,196 from 507 fires, and heating and boiling-down caused damage to the extent.of £14,942 in 300 fires. The fire-loss problem in the Dominion has been the subject of no little concern in recent years, and losses have shown a tendency to increase steadily, although the efficiency of the fire service is undoubtedly being increased. As long, however, as the public continues to lie as neglectful of (he ordinary commonsense precautions against fire as it appears to be, the loss in property cannot be expected to be materially reduced, no raattey how well organised fire-fighting appliauces may become.