Chicago World

Shall We Trust To Luck?

America's fire waste has long been a national disgrace. Yet, some respects, we're a great deal luckier than we deserve to be. Many a fire has all the earmarks of a major disaster—but, through a combination of happy circumstances, is held in check.

To take a typical example, such a blaze recently started in the small hours of the morning in a 50-year old building in Portland, Oregon. The upper floors of the structure had been made into small apartments most of which were occupied by elderly people. But luck was with these potential victims. Due to the prompt sounding of the alarm and the fine efficiency of the fire department, all of the residents were evacuated without serious injury, and their property damage was pretty much limited to ground floor shops. What would have happened if the gods of fortune had looked the other way is easily imagined—there might have been another tragedy comparable to the Illinois hospital fire, and the Chicago and Atlanta hotel catastrophes.

Do we want to take a chance on luck being with us? Do we want to work on the theory that maybe we'll escape unscathed if fire strikes? That is what millions of us do, and sometimes it works. But when it doesn't work, people die horribly.

We can't prevent every fire, but the experts say we can prevent the great majority of them. On the part of the community there must be modern, well-enforced building codes, inspections, etc. On the part of the individual, there must be care with such obvious causes of fire as smoking materials, heating plants and electrical equipment. Then we won't be trusting blindly to luck.