FIRE PROTECTION their structural or tension metal members properly insulated against heat. They are in tended chiefly for dwellings, apartments, office purposes or other uses which do not involve the presence of combustible goods in amounts so large as to produce heat sufficiently great to endanger the iron work. Such structures are in common use, partly because of their greater cheapness as compared with the fireproof type, and also because their erection is not pro hibited by the building codes of many cities.
In considering so-called "fireproof" struc tures it is important to bear in mind that such buildings cannot extend their character to in flammable contents. In fact, many of the hot test fires on record have occurred within fire proof structures heavily stocked with com bustible goods. With this factor in mind it is the essential purpose of a so-called fireproof building to completely isolate the several stories, so that a fire will itself out on the floor of origin without being able to spread either up or down. To accomplish this object three main features must exist. In the first place, all the metal structural members of the building must be properly isolated against heat from the interior or exterior of the build ing, or the construction may be of reinforced concrete with the reinforcing members safely insulated. Communications between floors, such as elevators and stairways, must be properly encased in fireproof cut-off shafts. Moreover, all the horizontal tiers of windows should consist of wired glass in fireproof frames, this last, feature being important since a fire on any given floor, if unable to go up or down through the flooring, will be forced out through the windows and will thus likely com municate to the upper stories through the tiers of windows immediately above.
In furthering up-to-date construction, prob ably no organization has done so much as the National Board of Fire Underwriters. Through its Committee On Construction of Buildings this national organization has pre pared a national buildings code which is recog nized to-day as the best and most feasible standard yet devised. Thousands of copies of this code have keen distributed, and many cities have already made their building ordi nances confo in whole or in part with this standard. E ert advice is also freely given by this coin ittee to public authorities and all others int ested along all lines relating to building ordinances and fire resistive con struction.
Fire Protective Devices.—The large amount of wood construction has made the conflagra tion hazard an ever present one in practically all American cities. Unfortunately, we are confronted in this respect with as condition and not a theory,' and our cities must be con sidered as they stand. But much can be done along the line of limiting fires to the building of origin through the more general use of wired glass, metal window frames, automatic alarm systems, metal waste and ash cans, fire buckets, chemical extinguishers, adequate standpipe systems, private fire departments and automatic sprinklers. The importance of these various devices in reducing the conflagration hazard,. when used at strategic points in our cities, is well described by Franklin H. Went worth, Secretary-Treasurer of the National Fire Protection Association in the following:' In the heart of nearly every city there are streets cros sing at right angles along which for a very considerable distance are buildings of brick, stone and concrete. This shows a more or less complete Maltese cross of buildings which are not wood and which operate to divide the wooden-built district into quarter sections and which might bold a fire in any one of these sections if they were equipped to do so. These brick and stone buildings are ordinarily valueless as fire stops, because their windows are of thin glass and their window frames of wood. At Baltimore and San Francisco the conflagration attacked such buildings easily, breaking out the panes, consuming the frames and converting every story of these brick structures into horizontal flues full of combustible contents. Brick and stone buildings are logical and capable fire stops if the fire can be kept out of them. The small city that will tram out its Maltese cross of such buildings and equip them with metal window frames and wired glass will immediately possess the equivalent of substantial fire walls crossing at right angles in its centre, dividing it into four sections. By such a simple. inexpensive. yet strategic procedure many a city may save itself from destruction which now awaits only the right kind of a fire on the right kind of a night. . . .