Show MYSTERY FIRES uy by thomas chonin 9 1 11 dougherty Doug horty acting chief now new york firo fire department at told to paul NY I cearney in tile the saturday Satur desy evening post plainly spontaneous ignition la Is much inch moro more common la Is generally believed and lai Is an imminent possibility that airvy betray uc tic from tile tho most unexpected quarter A wl aldor d or knowledge knowl edgo of its ita causes and all operation could not help but reduce its ita in menace enace so it behooves its iia to look into tile problem ot of tills this and other of our mystery fires much moro more closely than wo we have lit in tile past A few years yeara ago tile night shift in ri 0 job printing plant was disturbed by tile odor of at first drat the nion men ignored tho the danger signal us people do non nin they doudt to explain it away neither ot of those ox ex ard any effect on tile amiko tic oo they started tin an investigation which eventually lod led thom to it a tobacco shop on tile ground floor the source of the trouble forcing an entry they examined tho promises premises and discovered P a stack of old news propels piled on oil tho top lop ot of a row ot of near car tho the colling coiling sin smoking okIng furiously tho the incipient blaze waa quickly extinguished raid mid investigation allowed that nol mot only yero the steadily burning up from the bottom wid out from the center ot or the pile but the combustion ution was also progressing down and had almost burned thou through gli the wooden shelf which was at least an inch thick it if that tiro fire had come front from an source it would havo have boon been clearly indicated by traces of allar on the top of the pile 1 tho the outer edges of tho the papers or the underneath portion ot of the shelf and ir it had not been discovered did covered for or a few hours houra moro more tho the chances are that nn othor other outbreak would have been charged cli arged to that old standby stand by defect lofoco ivo ive wiring or tossed into the great total of worth of amanual destruction frankly classified as aa origin unknown TI the incident la Is sig ant elou enough dij lit in itself but its interest does not end here some time later a fire engineer was tolling tile story to a afire proven tion specialist who punctuated the conclusion of the with a ro re is thump chimil on hla his desk that ho he declared accounts for the mysterious tiro fire I 1 had in my own homo home a few months ago wo had a stack of old newspapers in tile alio cellar chrt burst into flamo flame one night and nearly resulted in it catastrophe that I 1 tremble to think of at last I 1 have tho the explanations trow how many other times hits hag it happened who knows the one thing wo we ca can it bo be certain of Is that millions million ot of homos homes havo have those stacks ot or old papers piled up tip lit in their collars those dellara are often damp and tho the ventilation poor the papers aro are thick with printers ink which contains demp black lampblack la Is a prolific cause of spontaneous ignition and there you arel are I 1 not long agoa ago a maid in nn an tract tile suburban residence was wag busily or enraged with her atterton atte roon duties quite alone in tho the house during tile alio temporary absence of the family detecting tho the odor of smoke she ahe er to the cellar in this case the collar cellar was immaculate the pride of a good housekeeper furthermore thero there wis avis no fire lit in tile furnace no lights burning no gas or vapor present and nobody arki boon been down there that day yet out in the middle of the floor far removed from any possible source of heat was a table on the top of which was one solitary object tt a neatly folded length of burlap that only ri week before nad been taken off some boma plants in the tha yard that piece of burlap was belching clouds of pungent smoke and whon tho the mald maid picked up tip one end ead an angry tongue of flame stab stabbed hod at her thus was another mystery nipped lit in tho bud there la is nothing mysterious about the fact that olly oily fabrics confined in a badly ventilated place pass through nn ox oxidization yz atlon pc cass tha that t raises vie the temperature and often ettell results in lg ig rif nulon tion that in IA tho the story in a fw words ignition Is a che chemical tact fact and chomicz chemical 1 facts are not n t m mysteries ys wo we inako them niya t torlia IDS very often because wo we ake no pains to understand them thein and exert little effort to apply what we 10 lo do understand painters rags heavens hen vena knows aro are notorious tor ifor their ability to start fires yet wo nye have them constantly st ono one ot of thorn mot ot long ago wro wred kad a house in tho the city of Ilar harrisburg tho the ignition ot of paint claths cloths left around carelessly by workmen caused damages ot of halt a million nill llon to a brand band now NY public building make a resolve res olvo then that it if you over have outsiders in to refurbish your homo home you must naver lot let tile se men got away at the ond end of 0 tho the day leaving their rags their pots pota and brushm brushes even their overalls in aid aide of I 1 your premises ind and it if you you rolf relf ever take a notion to add tt a modern witch of color to your kitchen or your furniture dont make the iho mistake of thinking that a 0 trifling qu quanta ariti ty of oil on your old work clothes wilt lint enough to lo be dangerous not only joco this warning apply to those painters whose work rates rate a as a emit craft it t includes those aho who touch tho the more irti stio holtha ot of water and oil colors colora ae moro more than ono studio and antus aum can testify coloring materials contain oil or carbon mid and either ot of those on waste rags raga can all a fire just as easily Ayli whether ethor itt it luis liaa lioen been wiped off it a masterpiece or a kitchen chain monitor |