FIRE MENACE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21220, 17 September 1940, Page 8

FIRE MENACE

CAUSE AND PREVENTION TALK TO ROTARY MEMBERS The menace of fire and Its prevention were discussed by Mr A. Craig, superintendent of the Hamilton Fire Brigade, at the weekly luncheon of the Hamilton Rotary Club yesterday. He told members that the fire loss in 1927-31 represented 18s Id a head, the highest in the world. Since that year, however, the annual fire loss, through fire prevention campaigns, had gradually decreased to 6s 8d a head in 1937. The failure of people to switch off electric irons and radios was one of the causes of fire mentioned by Mr Craig. The cost of this neglect had been a fire loss of £11,419 in 1938. Smoking in bed, dropping lighted cigarettes or cigars, and the gnawing of matches by rats had been responsible for a fire loss of £3248. Spontaneous combustion was the cause of more fires than most people realised. The material in various floor polishes would give rise to spontaneous combustion, and this was why polishing cloths should never be put in hot-water cupboards. Faulty hot-water cupboards were often blamed for fires that were more probably the result of spontaneous combustion caused by the storing of polishing cloths in the cupboard. Duplex Fire Alarm The fire alarm system in Hamilton was explained by the superintendent, who said it was known as the duplex system. It had been invented in Dunedin and was not yet in use outside of the Dominion. Fifty such alarms were installed in Hamilton and he hoped that it would not be long before twice this number were available. The system was a particularly efficient one, the machine registering on a tape from which box the alarm had come and also the time and date of the alarm.

Mr Craig also explained the automatic fire alarm system, which depended on sudden rises in temperature for its working.