REPORT OF STATE FIRE MARSHAL WHITCOMB.
Owing to the severe illness of Mr. T. I. Steadfast to whom was intrusted the compilation of the statistics, as well as to the difficulty of obtaining up to a recent date accurate statements of fire losses from the more distant sections of the State of Massachusetts, the report of State Fire Marshal Whitcomb for last year has only recently seen the light. It is comparatively brief; but the next report, it is promised, will treat “more exhaustively of the beneficial results of the work of the office.” The following figures will prove interesting.
The total number of fires occuring throughout the State during the year was 3,925. The loss on the same was $6,087,936. The sound value of property damaged by fire was $50,125,988; amount of insurar.ee at risk on the same, $33,385,847; insurance loss paid on the same, $4,924,304. Of the total number of fires 408 were of incendiary origin. The total valuation of property damaged by incendiary fires was $2,464,055; total insurance covering the same, $1,820,031; total Joss, $839,275. Three hundred and eleven fires were of unknown origin. The total valuation of property damaged by such fires was $2,309 171; total amount of insurance covering the same, $2,no. 120; total loss, $898,257. The total number of fires in the city of Boston occurring during the year was 879; total valuation of property damaged, $14,018,391; total insurance at risk, $13,120,987; total loss, 1,376,141. Of the total number of Boston fires, forty-seven were incendiary—the valuation of the property damaged by them being $509,775; total insurance on the same, $345,781; total loss on the same, $57,565. The causes of twenty-three of the Boston fires were unknown. The total valuation of the property thus damaged was $635,048; total insurance, $795,540; total loss, $141,560. The total number of fires occurring in the State outside of Boston was 3,046; the total valuation on the property damaged, $36,107,597; total insurance, $20,364,860; total loss, $4,711,795; insurance loss. $3,657,099. Of these outlying fires 361 were incendiary, with a total valuation on the property of $1,954,280; total insurance, $1,474,250; total loss. $781,690. Two hundred and eighty-eight of these fires were of unknown origin, with a total valuation on the property of $1,674,123; total insurance, $1,314,580; total loss, $631,596 During the year there have been seventy-nine arrests and sixty-four convictions, with six arrested parties awaiting trial. Prior to the establishment of the office less than eighteen per cent, of the number of arrests resulted in convictions. During the past year over eighty per cent, have been convicted, while the proportion of convictions to the total number of incendiaries has been increased tenfold over the former percentage. Of the arrests and convictions during the year, one was a boy of fifteen years of age who set eight fires; two were young men twenty years of age, who, during a year and a half, had set thirty-eight fires, with a loss aggregating a million and a half dollars; a young man twenty-three years old set twelve fires, with a loss aggregating $70,000; another incendiary was a man seventyfour years of age, who collected insurance fifteen times on practically the same furniture in his house—the fire department being notified only in the instance of the first fire. The number of incendiary fires occurring in the city of Boston during the year remains at about the normal percentage of five per cent.—a percentage to which they were reduced a number of years ago and have since retained, largely the result, without doubt, of the adoption of the fire marshal system in that city ten years ago. The percentage of both incendiary and unknown fires occurring in the State outside of Boston has been gradually lowered since the establishment of the State fire marshal’s office, and it is confidently expected that this percentage for the current year will show a very material decrease as a result of the successful prosecutions during 1896. Thirty-five per cent, of the tota’ number of incendiary fires were set for the purpose of defrauding insurance companies; eleven per cent, wete the result of pyromania; five per cent., revenge;toconceal crime, two per cent.; motive unknown, forty-seven per cent. In eleven per cent, of insurance-defrauding fires the insured parties had had more than one fire, and in one instance seventeen fires. The proportion of loss to valuation of the property damaged has been greater in fires occurring outside of the city of Boston than in that city, and the proportion of loss to valuation on incendiary fires outside of Boston has been nearly twice as great as in the city. The successful operation of the fire marshal system during the year (adds Fire Marshal Whitcomb) has been due in no small degree to the cordial cooperation of the chiefs and members of the various fire and police departments throughout the State.
