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REAL ESTATE
AND
NEW YORK, DECEMBER^2G, 1914
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE EDISON FIRE I
I
m
I
Why the Brick BuiMings Failed and the Concrete
Structures Stood Up—Automatic Equipment Needed
liBieMMiliiW^^
CHIEF KENLON, of the New Vork
fire department, stood in the midst
of the ruins of the great Thomas A.
Edison plant at West Orange, N. J., the
day a representative of the Record and
Guide visited the scene and, after making
a careful examination of the brick and
concrete buildings whose walls are still
standing, slowly shook his head and
said: "It certainly was a hot fire." In
that brief sentence the man who, per¬
haps better than any other, knows what
"hot fires" are, told the whole story of
was carrying an overload which was be¬
ing relieved on the very afternoon that
the fire broke out. In this building
there were several thousand finished dic¬
tating phonograph machines, tons of
wax cylinders, packing cases being filled
and ready to ]:ie shipped, and wax in
process of being molded. Not far away
was a great quantity of alcohol and
other chemicals used in the manufacture
of this material. This wax in combus¬
tion developed a temperature seldom to
be met with, even in factory buildings,
and yet Chief Engineer Hutcheson, of
brick construction with the curt remark
that every brick building that the flames
visited was left in ruins. But every one
of the brick buildings thus devastated
carried the floors on the walls, except
where they were supported hv wooden
columns. Most of these buildings car¬
ried heavy loads of machinery, or tran¬
sient material, passing through the plant
for manufacture, of one sort or another.
When these steel trusses became en-
rapted in the fierce flames, and the
wooden floor columns burned away, the
walls were unable to sustain the weight
SCENE DURING CONFLAGRATION OF EDISON PLANT, WEST ORANGE. N. J.
lighted by Lyons.
the conflagration that ravaged nineteen
buildings, sixteen of which were of fire¬
proof construction.
The chief chemist of the Celluloid
Company, of Harrison, N. J., told Thad¬
deus O. Doane, treasurer of the New
Jersey State Fire Chief Engineers' Asso¬
ciation and a building construction ex¬
pert of prominence, that he believed, in
certain parts of the burning area, the
heat attained a temperature of 10,000 de¬
grees. Chief Kenlon did not reduce his
observation to figures, but when he saw
on a partially calcined stone window-
sill the two masses of fused glass, cast-
iron sash weights and steel window bars,
he was su-er than ever that unusually
high temperature prevailed during that
fire of December 9. One of the accom¬
panying cuts shows the molten masses.
and in the lower right-hand corner may
be seen the squared remnant of the win¬
dow bar. On the extreme left of the
cut is a limestone sill that had been re¬
duced almost to the softness of chalk.
With such terriffic heat, it is not sur¬
prising that great reinforced cojicrete
columns occasionally spalled. as shown
in the other cut. Here the floor above
the Edison plants, said that had not the
firemen turned their streams upon the
white hot reinforced concrete columns
they probably would have cooled oft
without damage more than mere surface
craizing.
In all the buildings destroyed there
was no sprinkler system, no metal
framed windows, no wire glass window
panes and no fire walls. Absence of
these fire preventive features in the
buildings has been ascribed as the cause
of the rapid spread of the flames once
they gained headway. Most of the floors
were either of wood or wood over con¬
crete arches, the latter, in practically
every case having stood the fearful lieat
with barely a crack. Here and there
some of the girder flanges spalled where
the concrete has been laid thinly, but in
no case, except where column failure oc¬
curred was there evidence of excessive
damage to floor spans.
The cut of the brick wall will show
that had conditions of construction been
equal this material would have come in
for its share of encomium as a fire re¬
sistive material. Pro-concrete interests
have dismissed the subject matter of
and they fell. It is significant that in
each case these walls collapsed inwardly:
The portion of the brick wall, still
standing, shows ample evidence of solid¬
ity, despite the fact that the heat was
sufficient to fuse glass, steel and pig
iron and to calcine limestone. The sal¬
vage of brick in this part of the plant
will run to approximately 55 per cent.
The white splashes on the brick surface
were pointed out as concrete calcination
dust that filled the air and was carried
in the form of a soft paste on the fire
fighting streams.
Building managers in New York, op¬
erators of factories and owners of build¬
ings, who are depending for their fire
protection upon hose equipment and
numerous water ta"ps, can find a strong
moral pointing to the fallacy of depend¬
ence upon this system of prevention
alone, in the Edison fire. The Edison
plant was thus equipped and burned. It
is the greatest lesson of all. This is
how its inadequacy was proved.'-
The fire was discovered in the small
semi-fireproof building used as a tele¬
phone exchange and film inspection
room. It was a small frame structure