Considerations on destructive fires, and the means of prevention in future / [George William Manby].

  • Manby, George William, 1765-1854
Date:
[1816]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Considerations on destructive fires, and the means of prevention in future / [George William Manby]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CONSIDERATIONS ON DESTRUCTIVE FIRES, ANB THE MEANS OF PREVENTION IN FujrURE. The Public at large are greatly interested in every circumstance which shall tend to lessen the great calamity of Fire; but the Insurance Companies, who incur great losses in every part of the British Empire, and particularly in the metropolis, have a common interest in whatever is calculated to its prevention. The general police respecting the extinguishing of fires is totally and exclusively in the hands of the different Fire Insurance Companies, and properly so, because in all calami¬ ties of this nature, they are the chief sufferers. To them, therefore, W'ho have lost so many millions for want of the immediate means of extinguishing fires in their very begin¬ ning, I solicit to examine with the most scrutinizing attention, tHe merit or demerit of the method proposed, and to afford encouragement, if it shall be found to possess those proper¬ ties which shall tend to prevent fires in their incipient state from being so tremendously destructive as they have almost uniformly been found to be, for want of a prompt supply of water, and equally prompt collection of engines. In spite of the excellent arrangements which have already been made, this desideratum has scarcely in any one instance been attained, and hence the great losses which have been experience are to be ascribed; the preceding considerations are therefore most respectfully submitted to general attention. their fatal and destructive shew that some simple counteract the extension The numerous fires in the metropolis and other places, witl consequences, (particularly 'when they happen in the night, method of easy and immediate application, is still necessary t and rapidity of the flames. It must be obvious, that the ready extinction of fire depends mtirely on the facility with which water is brought to act upon it at its commencement; md that when left uncon- trouled during the delay of engines to arrive, the procuremen! of water, and the further delay of getting the engines into full action, it reaches a height at which its reduction is highly doubtful, and at least very difficult. Many instances o' destruction by fire have been caused by obstructions to the conveyance of engines to the spot, or from the impossi¬ bility of procuring water to enable them to act when they have arrived; and in every case some delay necessarily takes place in preparing the engines, even when water is at hand. It is a well known fact, that man}’^ of the great and destructive fires in London and other large towns, where water-pipes are laid, might have been controuled, if water could have been obtained in time. In places not so provided, as villages, the detached residences of gentlemen, and other buildings in the country, magazines of combustibles, repositories of stores, theatres, ricks of corn, &c. the want of water at hand or other means of extinc¬ tion, makes their total destruction, in case of fire, almost inevitable. From observations which I have made in witnessing fires, particularly one at Edin¬ burgh, in January 1813, (which raged on the fifth floor of a lofty pile of buildings, and rapidly extended itself from the difficulty of getting engines to act upon it from its great height,) first called my attention to the subject j and from information of those persons con-