FIRES IN LONDON AND NEW YORK.
When the chief of the London Fire Brigade visited the United States in 1882, he was, as is the general rule on the other side of the Atlantic, "interviewed"—a custom, it may be remarked, which appears to be gaining ground also in this country. The inferences drawn from these interviews seem to be that the absence of large fires in London was chiefly due to the superiority of our fire brigade, and that the greater frequency of conflagrations in American cities, and particularly in New York, was due to the inferiority of their fire departments. How unjust such a comparison would be is shown in a paper presented by Mr. Edward B. Dorsey, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, to that association, in which the author discusses the comparative liability to and danger from conflagrations in London and in American cities. He found from an investigation which he conducted with much care during a visit to London that it is undoubtedly true that large fires are much less frequent in the metropolis than in American cities; but it is equally true that the circumstances existing in London and New York are quite different. As it is a well-known fact that the promptness, efficiency, and bravery of American firemen cannot be surpassed, we gladly give prominence to the result of the author's investigations into the true causes of the great liability of American cities to large fires. In a highly interesting comparison the writer has selected New York and London as typical cities, although his observations will apply to most American and English towns, if, perhaps, with not quite the same force. In the first place, the efforts of the London Fire Brigade receive much aid from our peculiarly damp climate. From the average of eleven years (1871-1881) of the meteorological observations made at the Greenwich Observatory, it appears that in London it rains, on the average, more than three days in the week, that the sun shines only one-fourth of the time he is above the horizon, and that the atmosphere only lacks 18 per cent. of complete saturation, and is cloudy seven-tenths of the time. Moreover, the humidity of the atmosphere in London is very uniform, varying but little in the different months. Under these circumstances, wood will not be ignited very easily by sparks or by contact with a weak flame. This is very different from the condition of wood in the long, hot, dry seasons of the American continent. The average temperature for the three winter months in London is 38.24 degrees Fahr.; in New York it is 31.56 degrees, or 6.68 degrees lower. This lower range of temperature must be the cause of many conflagrations, for, to make up for the deficiency in the natural temperature, there must be in New York many more and larger domestic fires. The following statistics, taken from the records of the New York Fire Department, show this. In the three winter months of 1881, January, February, and December, there were 522 fire alarms in New York, or an average per month of 174; in the remaining nine months 1,263, or an average per month of 140. In the corresponding three winter months of 1882 there were 602 fire alarms, or an average per month of 201; in the remaining nine months 1,401, or an average per month of 155. In round numbers there were in 1881 one-fourth, and in 1882 one-third more fire alarms in the three winter months than in the nine warmer months. We are not aware that similar statistics have ever been compiled for London, and are consequently unable to draw comparison; but, speaking from recollection, fires appear to be more frequent also in London during the winter months.
Another cause of the greater frequency of fires in New York and their more destructive nature is the greater density of population in that city. The London Metropolitan Police District covers 690 square miles, extending 12 to 15 miles in every direction from Charing Cross, and contained in 1881 a population of 4,764,312; but what is generally known as London covers 122 square miles, containing, in 1881, 528,794 houses, and a population of 3,814,574, averaging 7.21 persons per house, 49 per acre, and 31,267 per square mile. Now let us look at New York. South of Fortieth Street between the Hudson and East Rivers, New York has an area of 3,905 acres, a fraction over six square miles, exclusive of piers, and contained, according to the census of 1880, a population of 813,076. This gives 208 persons per acre. The census of 1880 reports the total number of dwellings in New York at 73,684; total population, 1,206,299; average per dwelling, 16.37. Selecting for comparison an area about equal from the fifteen most densely populated districts or parishes of London, of an aggregate area of 3,896 acres, and with a total population of 746,305, we obtain 191.5 persons per acre. Thus briefly New York averaged 208 persons per acre, and 16.37 per dwelling; London, for the same area, 191.5 persons per acre, and 7.21 per house. But this comparison is scarcely fair, as in London only the most populous and poorest districts are included, corresponding to the entirely tenement districts of New York, while in the latter city it includes the richest and most fashionable sections, as well as the poorest. If tenement districts were taken alone, the population would be found much more dense, and New York proportionately much more densely populated. Taking four of the most thickly populated of the London districts (East London, Strand, Old Street, St. Luke's, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and St. George, Bloomsbury), we find on a total area of 792 acres a population of 197,285, or an average of 249 persons per acre. In four of the most densely populated wards of New York (10th, 11th, 13th, and 17th), we have on an area of 735 acres a population of 258,966, or 352 persons per acre. This is 40 per cent. higher than in London, the districts being about the same size, each containing about 1-1/5 square miles. Apart from the greater crowding which takes place in New York, and the different style of buildings, another very fertile cause of the spreading of fires is the freer use of wood in their construction. It is asserted that in New York there is more than double the quantity of wood used in buildings per acre than in London. From a house census undertaken in 1882 by the New York Fire Department, moreover, it appears that there were 106,885 buildings including sheds, of which 28,798 houses were built of wood or other inflammable materials, besides 3,803 wooden sheds, giving a total of 32,601 wooden buildings.
We are not aware that there are any wooden houses left in London. There are other minor causes which act as checks upon the spreading of fires in London. London houses are mostly small in size, and fires are thus confined to a limited space between brick walls. Their walls are generally low and well braced, which enable the firemen to approach them without danger. About 60 per cent. of London houses are less than 22 feet high from the pavement to the eaves; more than half of the remainder are less than 40 feet high, very few being over 50 feet high. This, of course, excludes the newer buildings in the City. St. James's Palace does not exceed 40 feet, the Bank of England not over 30 feet in height; but these are exceptional structures. Fireproof roofings and projecting party walls also retard the spreading of conflagrations. The houses being comparatively low and small, the firemen are enabled to throw water easily over them, and to reach their roofs with short ladders. There is in London an almost universal absence of wooden additions and outbuildings, and the New York ash barrel or box kept in the house is also unknown. The local authorities in London keep a strict watch over the manufacture or storage of combustible materials in populous parts of the city. Although overhead telegraph wires are multiplying to an alarming extent in London, their number is nothing to be compared to their bewildering multitude in New York, where their presence is not only a hinderance to the operations of the firemen, but a positive danger to their lives. Finally—and this has already been partly dealt with in speaking of the comparative density of population of the two cities—a look at the map of London will show us how the River Thames and the numerous parks, squares, private grounds, wide streets, as well as the railways running into London, all act as effectual barriers to the extension of fires.
The recent great conflagrations in the city vividly illustrate to Londoners what fire could do if their metropolis were built on the New York plan. The City, however, as we have remarked, is an exceptional part of London, and, taking the British metropolis as it is, with its hundreds of square miles of suburbs, and contrasting its condition with that of New York, we are led to adopt the opinion that London, with its excellent fire brigade, is safe from a destructive conflagration. It was stated above, and it is repeated here, that the fire brigade of New York is unsurpassed for promptness, skill, and heroic intrepidity, but their task, by contrast, is a heavy one in a city like New York, with its numerous wooden buildings, wooden or asphalt roofs, buildings from four to ten stories high, with long unbraced walls, weakened by many large windows, containing more than ten times the timber an average London house does, and that very inflammable, owing to the dry and hot American climate. But this is not all. In New York we find the five and six story tenement houses with two or three families on each floor, each with their private ash barrel or box kept handy in their rooms, all striving to keep warm during the severe winters of North America. We also find narrow streets and high buildings, with nothing to arrest the extension of a fire except a few small parks, not even projecting or effectual fire-walls between the several buildings. And to all this must be added the perfect freedom with which the city authorities of New York allow in its most populous portions large stables, timber yards, carpenters' shops, and the manufacture and storage of inflammable materials. Personal liberty could not be carried to a more dangerous extent. We ought to be thankful that in such matters individual freedom is somewhat hampered in our old-fashioned and quieter-going country.—London Morning Post.