Having thus covered the sides of the ricks adjoining that on fire, devote all your attention to the latter. Press it together by every available means. If water is at hand, throw upon it as much as possible.
If engines arrive, let the water be thrown upon the blankets, &c., covering the adjoining stacks, and then upon the stack on fire.
Among the numerous hands who flock to assist upon these occasions, many do mischief by their want of knowledge, and especially by opening the fired stack and scattering the embers. In order to obviate this evil, place your best man in command over the stack on fire, desire him to make it his sole duty to prevent it being disturbed, and to keep it pressed and watered.
Place other men, in whose steadiness you have confidence, to watch the adjoining ricks, to keep the coverings over them, and to extinguish any embers flying from the stack on fire. In order to effect this, it is most desirable that there should be ladders at hand to enable one or two of the labourers to mount upon each stack.
If the ricks are separated from each other, and there is no danger of the fire extending to a second, it is of course desirable to save as much of the one on fire as may be possible. That, however, is not unfrequently accomplished by keeping the rick compactly together rather than by opening it.
Send for all the neighbours’ blankets and tarpaulins: these are invaluable, they are near at hand, and can be immediately applied.
The companies are always very willing to pay for any damage done in attempting to save their property.
The business of the Fire Brigade is to protect property and not life from fire, though the men of course use every exertion to save the inmates, and are always provided with a “jumping-sheet” to catch those who precipitate themselves from the roofs and windows of houses. As the danger to life generally arises at a very early stage of a fire, when the freshly aroused inhabitants fly distracted into very dangerous places, and often destroy themselves by needless haste, it is highly necessary to have help at hand before the engines can possibly arrive. There are, it is true, ladders placed against all the parish churches, but they are always locked up, often rotten, and never in charge of trained individuals: accordingly, they may be classed for inefficiency with the parish engines. A proof of this was given at the calamitous fire which occurred in Dover Street, at Raggett’s Hotel, on which occasion Mrs. Round and several other persons were lost through the conduct of the keeper of one of the fire-escapes of the parish of St. James being absent when called, and drunk when, upon his arrival, he attempted to put his machine in action: the keeper of a second escape belonging to this parish, and stationed in Golden Square, refused to go to a fire in Soho, which occurred in 1852, because it was out of his district: the consequence was, than seven persons threw themselves from the windows and were all more or less dangerously injured.
In 1833 the Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire, which had been imperfectly organized a year or two before, was fully established, and has continued to increase the sphere of its influence year by year. The committee of management, appreciating the value of celerity in attending fires, have marked the metropolis out into fifty-five squares of half a mile each: in forty-two of these they have established a station,[46] in its most central part, at which a fire-escape and trained conductor are to be found from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. from Lady-day to Michaelmas, and from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. from Michaelmas to Lady-day. When the remaining thirteen squares are furnished, there will be means of rescue from fire within a quarter of a mile of every house in London: thus the nightly watch for this purpose is better organized with respect to number of stations than even the fire brigade, and, like this force, it is under the general management of a single director. We are all familiar with the sight of these strange-looking machines as they come towering along in the dusk of the evening towards their appointed stations; but few perhaps have seen them in action or have examined the manner in which they are constructed. There are several methods of building them, but the one chiefly used is Wivell’s, a very simple machine and speedily put in action, a description of which we take from the society’s report:—
“The main ladder reaches from thirty to thirty-five feet, and can instantly be applied to most second-floor windows, by means of the carriage lever. The upper ladder folds over the main ladder, and is raised easily in the position represented, by a rope attached to its lever-irons on either side of the main ladder; or, as recently adopted in one or two of the escapes, by an arrangement of pulleys in lieu of the lever-irons. The short ladder, for first floors, fits in under the carriage, and is often of the greatest service. Under the whole length of the main ladder is a canvas trough or bagging, made of stout sailcloth, protected by an outer trough of copper-wire net, leaving sufficient room between for the yielding of the canvas in a person’s descent. The addition of the copper-wire is a great improvement, as, although not affording an entire protection against the canvas burning, it in most cases avails, and prevents the possibility of any one falling through. The soaking of the canvas in alum and other solutions is attended to; but this, while preventing its flaming, cannot avoid the risk of accident from the fire charring the canvas.”