500 FIRE ENGINEERING

Six· .Decades of Fire

Progress

Fighting

Industrial Progres s Followed by New Developments i n Fi're Fightin g Equipment and Meth ods

The Remark is Often Made That Firemen are "Softer" Today Than in the "Good Old Days." The Fallacy of Such a Statement is Indicated by the Stiff Course in Evolutions Which New Recruits Must Master. Inci­dentally, These Evolutions Are Same as Those

Employed in the "Good Old Days"

THERE is one change that has not occurred in the past sixty years of progress in American fire fighting, and that is the position held by wa­ter as a fire extinguishing agent.

Since the dawn of history, water has remained the chief standby for controlling fires of all sizes, and is still effective in the majority of cas�s.

Recent years, however, have seenthe development of a number of new extinguishing agents which have proven far more effective for certain types of fires than has water. Theadvent and use of these new extin-

By FRED SHEPPERD

guishers have changed materially the methods of operating on certain types of fires. Today the by-word mightwell be: "Specialized extinguishersfor specialized fires."

Soda and Acid Extinguishers

Following the use of plain water, the soda and acid extinguisher en­tered the scene. For years it was commonly believed that the solution in the extinguisher had some extraor­dinary extinguishing power not pos­sessed by water. This fallacy, how­ever, has been fairly well cleared up in recent years. Today it is recog­nized that for practically all fires the stream from the soda and acid ma­chine is no more effective than a wa­ter stream of the same size andpressure.

Other Extinguishing Agents

After the soda and acid extinguish­er, foam, carbon tetrachloride, carbondioxide, methyl bromide ( or loaded str°eam) and fog, re­spectively, entered into the picture.

Each of theseagents today is rec­ognized as possessing particular qual i t ies especial ly effective on certain types of fires.

For electrical fires and small inflamma­ble liquid fires, car­bon tetrachloride has become well estab­lished. Foam is thechief s tandby forfires in large oil and inflammable l iquidcontainers , a n dsmaller oil installa­tions where flowing oil is not encoun­tered. lt is also used to a limited extent on fires in ordinary materials.

t ions o n board ships, where the gas could be confined to the zone of combustion. Because it produced no harm to the materials which were ex­posed to it, it proved a valuable ex­tinguishing agent on fires involving machinery and materials on which water might create severe losses.

More recently it has extended its field of usefulness, so that many car­bon dioxide extinguishers are now in service for handling small oil and in­flammable liquid fires, as well as fires around electrical apparatus. In con­fined spaces it is highly effective for almost any type of fire.

Methyl bromide has so far found a very limited use in fire fighting. While it is twice as efficient a fireextinguishing compound as carbontetrachloride, its comparatively high cost has been a deterrent to its use.Like carbon tetrachloride, methylbromide vapors have the remarkable property of preventing combustion even when a sufficient amount of oxy-

Carbon dioxide first gained a promi­nent place in fire ex­tinguishing opera-

Inside Fire Fighting is Not Spectacular, But I t is H_ighly Efficient. It is a Trend Which is Becoming More Marked in

Departments Large and Small

for OCTOBER, 1937

gen is present to maintain a fire. It has a much more marked toxic effect than carbon tetrachloride. It mustbe used with extreme care.

The latest agent for extinguishing fires, particularly those in oil or in­flammable liquids, is atomized water, or fog. Fog is produced by atomizing a stream of water by means of aspecially designed nozzle. The streamis broken up into fine particles, either by the impinging of streams on each other or by a movable part in the noz­zle which performs the same function.

The range of fires on which fog iseffective has not yet been fully deter­mined, but it is evident that the fog may be used even on electrical appa­ratus at fires, without doing materialdamage.

With these new additions to the working equipment of the modern de­partment, it can be appreciated thatmethods of fire fighting have changedwidely in the last sixty years ..

Inside Work

At the average fire, the Fire De­partment of today puts on a less spectacular performance than a half century ago. Responsible for this change is the present trend toward inside work. A well trained, mod­ern department goes into the build­ing after the fire and does not wait for it to come out. The objective is to extinguish the fire with the least ,va­ter possible. To do this, the line must be taken to the seat of the firewhere it can operate most effectively.

Ventilation

Entering a building which is in­volved by fire requires certain pre­liminary steps, as well as specialequipment in some cases. Ventila­tion of the structure removes a great deal of the heat and smoke, permitting the ·department to do close work. � The practice of ventilating, while

conceived years ago, made little head­way until 1908. From that time on its progress has been steady.

An interesting example of how a useful trend may be checked by thoughtlessness is exemplified by theexperience of N e,v York City. Yearsago, when the Fire Department was progressing in methods of ventilating, the Fire Commissioner happened tobe at a fire one evening when he saw a fireman carelessly break a plate glass window. He ordered that there­after there be no unnecessary break­age of glass at fires. .The firemen took him literally, and then some. As a_ result, they hesitated to break anywindows or skylights. The result was that ventilation was set back to where it was in the volunteer depart-

ment days. It took a progressiveChief, and a fearless one, to re-estab­lish the practice, which today is be­coming universal.

\i\Thile ventilation 1s absolutelynecessary for making inside work at many fires possible, the development and use of gas masks and self con­tained breathing apparatus has also served as an important factor in this progress.

While gas masks would have beenuseful a half century ago, they areabsolutely necessary today. With the profound development of the chemical industry, and the introduction of new chemical products which when afire

501

( 1) the profession of fire fighting isfar more attractive to young men to­day, with its greater pay and shorter hours; (2) general adoption of civil service has resulted in a better edu­�ated class pf men entering the serv­ice.

Because the fireman's job is onewhich is looked upon favorably by so many young men of the present day, the Fire Department can impose much more severe entrance require­ments now than in the past. To enter the service a young man must have a fairly good education, besides a good physique. To gain promotion afterentering the department, he must

The Fireman Goes to School F'ire Department Schools aid in producing a more efficient, more capable officer. There's less

idle time for the men in the modern department.

throw off toxic gases, the gas mask and self-contained breathing appa­ratus have become highly essential equipment of Fire Departments. These devices make it possible for fire fighters to enter portions of the build­ing which could not be entered wereventilation alone depended upon.

Thus we see today new methods ofoperating at fires being introduced, as a result of the development of new extinguishing devices; we see change in methods of fire fighting brought about by the practice of extinguishing fire by working at close range.

Education

While developments of new meth­ods of extinguishing fire have pro­duced revolutionary changes in the Fire Department operations in recent years, almost of equal importance is the change in personnel.

Two factors underlie this change:

compete with a large number of men in the department in the civil service promotional examinations. And he must be high up on the list of those who have taken the examinations ifhe is to be assured of promotion. Thus the members of the department must compete with each other and this competition induces study on thepart of the men. Starting with a bet­ter education in the first place, and devoting so much time to improving themselves mentally, firemen of today are a much more intelligent and capable class than in the past. It is logical to conclude, therefore, that more intelligent fire fighting results.

Salvage Work

Less than two decades ago it seemed to be the impression of most Fire Chiefs that the work of the de­partment should end with the extin­guishing of a fire. They seemed to