In the winter of 1912 occurred the destruction of the Equitable Building, "caused by the careless tossing of a match into a waste paper basket in the Savarin restaurant which occupied quarters in the basement. This match had doubtless been used to light a cigar or cigarette."[8] The waste of time caused by this fire in addition to the actual destruction of the structure must have been enormous, if one thinks of the loss of the records of the great corporations which occupied the building, and of the inconvenience and delays suffered by stockholders and policy holders and other persons who had business relations with them. The fire which destroyed a part of the state capitol at Albany, including a vast number of books and manuscripts, was in all probability caused by a smoker, though the evidence is not quite as conclusive as in the case of the Triangle shirtwaist factory and the Equitable Building. Powell Evans says regarding this fire: "The financial loss is $6,000,000. The loss of documents and records is priceless." And yet to estimate the total social loss we should add to the pecuniary value of the building and its contents, the waste of time and labor inflicted upon a large number of innocent students who desired to use the library, but were unable to do so. All of the readers of the summary of legislation, e. g., were seriously embarrassed, since this fire delayed the issue of this publication by a couple of years.
These cases are referred to, because they were peculiarly dramatic and are still fresh in the memory of newspaper readers. But it would be a mistake to assume that they represent anything exceptional or phenomenal, like an earthquake or a tornado. Smoking is a chronic and regular cause of fires, perfectly familiar to those whose profession requires them to risk their lives in fighting them, a cause as susceptible of statistical treatment as the mortality from tuberculosis or typhoid. Unfortunately our statistics on this subject are very meagre, and efforts to secure figures from insurance men, who would be expected to have a direct interest in ascertaining the facts, have been surprisingly discouraging. Through the prompt courtesy of the officials concerned, however, the reports of several state fire marshals and of the fire commissioners of several large cities have been secured, and are summarized below.
These statistics make no claim to completeness. In the nature of things, the causes of many fires cannot be ascertained, and, even where they are stated in a printed report, they are not always easy to interpret. For the particular subject under discussion it is especially hard to know what percentage of the fires caused by carelessness with matches should be charged to smokers. The common use of electric lights in cities, as well as of permanent fires for cooking and heating, makes it altogether reasonable to suppose that a very large percentage of the matches used serve the purposes of smokers. Observation of the habits of smokers indicates that a still larger percentage of fires caused by the careless use of matches is attributable to them. To avoid exaggeration, however, it has been thought best not to assume that all of the fires caused by carelessness with matches should be charged to smokers. Hence two columns are printed, one showing the fires due to matches (exclusive of matches in the hands of children and matches supposed to be ignited by rats or mice), the other showing the fires which are caused directly by cigars, cigarette stumps, smoking in bed, etc. The column giving the total number of fires for which causes are assigned is made by deducting from the total number of fire alarms the cases of false alarms, double alarms, etc., and the cases in which the cause was either not ascertained, or so vaguely stated as to be meaningless.
Causes of Fires as Given in Latest Reports
| City or State | Total Fires accounted for | Percentage due to tobacco | Percentage due to matches | Total |
| New York City | 10,330 | 12.3 | 15.7 | 28 |
| New York State (Outside of Greater New York) | 5,599 | 5.2 | 8.8 | 14.0 |
| Philadelphia | 2,784 | 5.0 | 25.5 | 30.5 |
| Boston | 3,443 | 15.6[9] | ||
| Newark | 1,108 | 9.8 | 20.8 | 30.6 |
| New Haven | 681 | 7.9 | 5.6 | 13.5 |
It would be futile with our present knowledge to try to construct any general average showing what percentage of fires in the country at large can fairly be charged to smokers. In some of the western states and cities in particular, the records are obviously incomplete as in the report of the state fire marshal of Illinois, which gives less than half as many fires for the city of Chicago during the year 1912 as were reported by the city fire marshal for the same period. And it is only fair to say that in some of these western sections of the country the percentage is much smaller than in the cities given above. One fact is, however, incontestable, and that is that smokers are recognized in all of the reports received as at least one of the important causes of fires and are sometimes, as in New York City, the most important single cause. This is clearly shown in the following extract from the report of the fire department for the year 1912:
Principal Causes of Fire
| Matches, carelessness with | 1,629 | |
| Cigars, cigarettes, etc., carelessness with | 1,273 | |
| Gas, illuminating, carelessness in the use of gaslights, ranges, radiators, etc. | 849 | |
| Bonfires, brush fires, igniting fences, etc. | 849 | |
| Stoves, stovepipes, furnaces, steampipes, heat from | 844 | |
| Chimney fires and sparks from chimneys | 784 | |
| Children playing with matches or with fire | 657 | |
| Candles, tapers, etc., carelessness with | 500 | |
| Total number of fires | 15,633 | |
| Not ascertained—suspicious | 506 | |
| Not fully ascertained | 4,797 | |
| ——— | ||
| Total not ascertained causes | 5,303 | |
| ——— | ||
| Number of fires, causes ascertained | 10,330 |
It also seems safe to say that in the large cities of the East, where it may be assumed that the records are more accurate than in the country at large, the percentages agree closely enough to justify the estimate made by Fire Commissioner Johnson of New York City that 15 to 20% of our fires are caused by the careless throwing away of lighted matches, cigars and cigarettes.[10]