Our Fire Losses

Our Fire Losses

巨大的火的美国和浪费Canada, set forth in the story of “A Five Years’ Fight Against Fire Waste,” by Powell Evans, chairman of the Fire Prevention Commute for the City of Philadelphia, and for several civic and commercial associations. The following table, based upon the latest available data, shows the average annual per capita fire loss of the United States at large, and the principal cities of the United States and Europe:

Fire waste in the United States and Canada is about ten times that of Western Europe. It averages broadly, $250,000,000 yearly, with $15,000,000 added exp e n s e lor protective measures i m p e r atively demanded by this great, continuous and increasing loss. The 1910 fire waste would pay the total interest-bearing debt of the country in four years; or would build the Panama Canal in less than two years. In other terms, it exceeds the combined cost of the United States Army and Navy and the interest on the national debt; or nearly equals the combined annual failures and pension payments in the United Statss; or exceeds the combined United States gold and silver production and Post Office Department receipts—these all annual figures. It represents about 40 per cent, of either the total unused United States Government receipts or total expenditures, or the net earnings of American railways; it represents about 80 per cent, of either the United States Internal Revenue receipts or the United States Customs or the interest paid on the railways in the country. The fire waste is equivalent to wiping out the entire corn crop once every ten years, and exceeds the annual value of wheat, hay, rye and oats. It is twice the annual value of the cotton crop. It costs about $30,000 for each hour in the year, or $500 for each minute. It costs, moreover, more than 1,500 lives and 5,000 serious injuries annually. The annual fire loss of the United States, on a ten years’ average, for the year up to the end of 1902 (prior to the great Baltimore and San Francisco fires) was $146,552,365; and up to 1908 was $198,181,188. The tremendous size of this waste may better be realized when measured with familiar items in our national expenditure. The annual ten-year average fire loss up to the end of 1906 compares as follows with the like average of the items given below: