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Fight Fire Menace on Shipboard Steamboat Inspection Should Issue Specific and Practical Regulations for Detecting and Extinguishing Fires—Present Rules Too Vague IRE at sea, the most dreaded of all marine catastrophies, was first given official consideration when the American delegation to the in- ternational conference on safety of life at sea offered the following res- olution: “That the several states signatory to this conference agree to enact such legislation as will to the fullest pos- sible extent provide for the preven- tion, detection and extinguishing of fire on shipboard, the details of the installation and application of such law to be regulated and arranged by the several signatory states.” Not until 1916 did the rules of the department of commerce, steamboat inspection service, take official cog- nizance of this vital subject, when rule IV, applying to ships under American registry was adopted. This rule has remained in force without change up to the present. The prog- ress made in the art of shipbuild- ing has long since caused this regu- lation to be inadequate for present day requirements. Present Rules Not Specific Rule IV, section 14, of the general rules and regulations prescribed by the board of supervising inspectors, reads: “All passenger vessels of more than 150 feet in length, whose construc- tion is contracted for after June 30, 1916, which are provided with state- rooms or other sleeping quarters for passengers, shall be equipped with an efficient fire alarm system or indicator which will automatically indicate or register at one or more points or stations where it can be most quickly observed by the officers or crew of the vessel, the presence or indication of fire in the staterooms and various other compartments of the _ vessel which are not accessible to the ob- servation of the officers or crew... .” As this rule is very broad and ca- pable of many interpretations, a num- ber of different types of fire detect- ing and alarm installations have been made, some of which are of doubtful efficiency and effectiveness. This is evidenced from statistics compiled by the United States coast guard section of the treasury department, which show that from July 1, 1921, to June 20, 1925, there were 701 vessels on The author is secretary of the Marine Com- mittee of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. BY J. S. JONES fire. Besides the considerable loss of lives, the property value involved was $69,793,950, of which, property to the value of $25,169,770, representing ap- proximately 86 per cent of the total value of the vessels and their cargo was destroyed. Authorities Study Regulations Such a tremendous loss of life and property has caused the department of commerce to give further considera- tion to the question of fire detection and protection of vessels under their cognizance and at the last annual J. S. JONES meeting of the board of supervising inspectors, the question of automatic fire alarm detection and protection oc- cupied a prominent place on the sched- ule of subjects under discussion. Not until the meeting of January, 1926, was the subject gone into comprehen- sively, and as a result of this meet- ing the steamboat inspection service now has under contemplation a re- vision of rule IV, section 14, of the regulations. The following proposed change has been issued by this de- partment for the comments of all in- terested and concerned in the ques- tion of fire detection and protection of ships: “All passenger steamers shall be equipped with an approved fire alarm system or indicator which will au- tomatically indicate and register, at 15 \ one or more points or stations where it can be most readily observed by the officers or crew of a vessel, the pres- ence or indication of fire in staterooms, officers’ and crew’s quarters, cargo and various other compartments of a vessel where fires are liable to oc- cur. This contemplated change, while more explicit as to the requirements than the previous regulations govern- » ing automatic fire alarm systems, more especially in respect to the compart- ments to be protected, is yet insuf- ficient to insure proper and adequate fire alarm systems being designed and installed for the proper protection of vessels. Likewise, they are sufficiently broad to continue to allow for many interpretations by the various inspec- tors in the different inspection dis- tricts, thereby defeating the object _ of uniform and efficient equipment and installation practice. Further Amplification Needed The proposed rule has not yet been adopted, and it is to be hoped that before adoption it will be amplified sufficiently to permit the shipowner and operator knowing in advance the amount of protection that will be re- quired for the safety of a vessel. There is likewise an economic factor which must be taken into considera- tion because an owner having a ship built in one inspection district to op- erate from another, can ill afford to have a fire alarm system which is not acceptable to the department :and in- spectors in any district’ from ‘which the ship may operate. Further, it is essential that uniform practice be established so that con- struction engineers and equipment manufacturers can properly interpret the department requirements in a way that will be uniformly acceptable. Under the rule in force at present one of the principal defects is that section of the rules relative to “pro- tection of only compartments not ac- cessible to officers and crew.” From a literal interpretation of the law, it appears that lamp rooms, paint lock- ers, storerooms, linen fockers, life preserver rooms, baggage rooms, and crew’s staterooms, being accessible to officers and crew, are therefore not required to have any fire detecting and alarm protection, although rec- (Continued on Page 42)