Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/271

Rh units as possible. Fire can then do damage only in some small space in which it originates. The whole secret of fire-fighting is this isolation, this keeping of fire within the narrowest possible confines, where it can readily be extinguished and by any employee of a building without having to call out the fire department. Further, my perfect building would have all of its exposed windows or narrow alleys and streets wire glazed in metal sash. What is the use of stout brick walls if you provide openings for fire every few feet and offer no greater barrier in those openings than wooden sash and sheet glass? Forty-four per cent, of our entire fire loss is attributable to this lack of proper window protection. In San Francisco, nearly all the loss was traceable to that same cause, because after the earthquake fires only originated in a comparatively few buildings but spread from one to the other via the window route. My interior decorations would be of marble or metal, or even plain plaster tastily ornamented in color, anything rather than the heavy wooden wainscoting, wooden floors, beamed ceilings and all that sort of thing that means just that much well-oiled fuel or rather kindling for a fire. Such is a really fire-proof building. It is a type that has proved its value time and time and again. It is nothing new and untried; it is not a mere theory. The great trouble has been, however, that some one item or other has been neglected in our existing so-called fire-proof buildings. In one, the windows are unprotected, though everything else is well done; in another the elevator wells are open, some one thing that vitiates the whole, for, remember, that like a chain, whose strength is equal only to its weakest link, so is a "fire-proof" building only thoroughly fire-proof if everything about it is properly done. You can not have half-fire-proof or semi-fire-proof. Those are misnomers.

Therefore, it is imperative that our authorities should demand good, incombustible construction. Left to their own volition it would be years before the people would build that way. It has to be made compulsory. The community must legislate for its safety and against the selfish or ignorant interests of the individual. But it may help the individual nevertheless by making it directly advantageous, to him to build properly. Supposing even that the regulations do not exact fireproof construction everywhere, taxes should be so arranged that a maximum rate should be assessed against inferior, highly combustible buildings. It is for their protection that the city has to maintain expensive fire departments and fire-fighting media; were it not for those buildings such expense would be unnecessary. It is nothing but right, consequently, that the owners of those buildings should pay their full pro rata of that charge. The rate upon first-class fire-proof construction should be the very minimum because those buildings require the least of that protection and their owners should not be made to pay as