A Budget of Canadian Fires

A Budget of Canadian Fires

During the week ending February 13, there was quite a series of bad fires over a large part of the Dominion front Calgary. Alberta, to Winnipeg on the one hand, to St. Thomas and Toronto, Ont., on the other. Those in the extreme northwestern sections, such as Calgary and Winnipeg were fought in zero weather in one Winnipeg hotel the thermometer registered over 20 degrees below, and as the blaze broke out at midnight, the firemen had to rescue a number of persons from the upper floors, many of them women and children only half clad, and dump them down anywhere on the snow and ice-bound street. From a pecuniary point of view the fires in Toronto and St. Thomas were probably the worst. In the former city a night conflagration destroyed the Car Equipment Company's plant on Dundas street. It was a night blaze and when the firemen went back to their quarters they left behind them simply a confused mass of bricks and debris. So fierce were the flames that they rose high in the air and leaped across the street, destroying a row of stores and dwellings and leaving nearly a dozen families homeless. The telegraph poles and wires in front of the burning building were involved. The telegraph and electric light poles were warped, ami one of them fell down blazing among the spectators, many of whom had narrow escapes from being mixed up in the tangled coils of wire. Whatever wires remained on the bowed poles were either fused, if not, they snapped like dry twigs under the influence of the intense heat. The loss was very heavy. At St. Thomas the loss was about $175,000, and was sustained by the proprietors of the Baldwin, Robinson Company, whose furniture store was in Baldwin street. The fire started early in the morning and from the first had everything in its favor. There was a high wind, the water pressure was only fair and of what there was, only very poor use could be made, as the equipment of the city’s fire brigade is by no means what it should he. Assistance was asked from London, 20 miles off. but it was noon before a special train left that city bringing Chief Aiken, ten firemen and apparatus. The high wind carried showers of sparks and burning embers great distances, and it was greatly to the credit of the local firemen that even before the London men arrived they managed to confine the flames to the Baldwin store, which was packed with inflammable material from basement to attic. The only damage suffered, outside it, was by water and smoke, which caused an aggregate loss of about $12,000 to an adjoining jewelry store and a bank. The Hydro-Electric feed wires were also cut so as to prevent loss of life among the firemen. That step necessitated tinclosing of many business places. It was late in the afternoon before the fire was under complete control and far into the night before the flames were.extinguished. It is very noticeable that fires in Canada are becoming much more frequent, and that one particular phase of the evil is that arson is growing, not waning in the Dominion. The fire loss in Canada last year amounted to approximately $23,000,000 -$3.07 per capita, annually. Since the beginning of 1013 the loss has been in a higher ratio.

在1月份时宣布-approximatel达3000000美元y 50 cents per capita. W ithin the first fort night in February it seemed as if by the end of the month the figures would not be much less, and if that rate of destruction is kept up till the end of the year the loss of 1312 will be doubled. In the Dominion, as in the United States, the same carelessness with respect to avoiding the possible causes of fire exists, with this difference, however, that in the United States much greater.attention to fire prevention is now being manifested, and people generally are rapidly becoming alive to the necessity of watchfulness in that respect. Throughout Canada, with a very few exceptions, there is a conspicuous lack of any attempt to indoctrinate, not the members of the fire brigades alone, but the people all around, young and old, workers and non-workers, with the idea that, till the same spirit is aroused in the Dominion that has driven the American citizens as a body to second the endeavors of their fire departments, stringent building laws and constant inspection of basements, cellars, factories and any other structures in which it is probable that fire risks arc to be met with, the possibilities, the probabilities, even the certainties of disastrous fires involving the loss of life and property will increase day by day. The appointment of competent, non-political provincial fire marshals and their deputies (every fire chief should be a deputy in virtue of his office), with power of summary jurisdiction, would act as a prevention, greatly serve the cause, as likewise would the instruction, objective and subjective, of the children in the schools on the causes of fires and how they may be avoided. In the same line should be the enactment of even stricter laws than those already in force against the crime of arson and the enforcement of the highest penal ties of these laws in the event of anyone being convicted of that crime—even capital punishment should life be lost, would act as a deterrent. Towards this end has at last been organized the Ontario Fire Prevention Association, whose operations are to be Dominion-wide and not con fined to the one province.