Fire Protection and the Distribution System

Abstract

Fire protection is the governing factor in the design of the entire water system, both supply works and distribution system, in the smaller towns and cities, and is a very important factor even in the larger cities. The National Board of Fire Underwriters has set up, after careful study and research, a standard, based mainly on population, for the maximum amount of water required for fire flow in different sized municipalities which, we believe, is reasonable and is generally accepted in the water works field. This standard is the amount of water felt necessary to combat a fire which involves the major portion of a block and is not the maximum amount which can be effectively used on a fire of true conflagration proportions. This is well borne out by the performance records during two recent conflagrations. In Fall River, Massachusetts, where a conflagration in 1928 involved all or parts of eight blocks in the central business district, in which our fire flow requirement was 10,000 gallons a minute, a conservative estimate of the rate of use or wastage of water was 13,000 gallons a minute. In the Chicago stockyards fire of 1934, which swept over an area of about 100 acres, our requirements for the entire section were 20,000 gallons a minute, whereas a conservative estimate of the rate of use at the height of the fire was 50,000 gallons a minute. The delivery of such an amount of water was a praiseworthy performance both by the water department and in the use of fire department pumping engines. This performance was not possible until the fire had extended beyond the limits of the stockyards proper. There the facilities planned and provided by the city for just that sort of a fire became available. Parallel 16and 24-inch mains were provided, amply connected to larger feeders, and all small hydrants had been replaced about one year before. It was