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Show i CAN CUT DOWN FIRE LOSSES Abundant Proof That Carelessness Is the Chief Cause of Many Disastrous Disas-trous Conflagrations. ! The Society for Electrical Development, Develop-ment, dissatisfied with a recent report re-port of the National Board of Fire Underwriters In which electricity was blamed as the chief cause of fire losses, has made an exhaustive examination, taking the year 1919 as a basis. It publishes In the- Electrical World the results of this investigation. The report re-port snows that in 345 cities, with an aggregate population of 28.405,8--l persons, per-sons, there were 138,553 fires In 1919, of which those apparently of electric origin numbered 3,508, or 2.57 per cent of the total. Reginald Trautscbold, writer of the report, remarks that "a large proportion propor-tion of electric fires, If not the majority, major-ity, are caused by careless disregard of quite obviously necessary precautions, precau-tions, such as leaving an electric flat-iron flat-iron with the current turned on upon an Inflammable ironing-board." Though fires resulting from such causes usually usual-ly cause only trifling damage, It Is easy to see how they may result In very serious conflagrations. |