Custer Weekly Chronicle

To Put a Stop to Fire Waste State Insurance Commissioner Suggests a Clean Up Week.

To put a stop to the fire waste in South Dakota as much as possible, and thus to save a vast sum annually to the people is the ambition of O. K. Stablein, the insurance commissioner, who in an open letter to the press of the state suggests that each community this year celebrate Clean Up Week during which rubbish in cellars and backyards shall be removed, defective chimneys repaired, the rank growth of weeds on vacant lots removed, and fire menaces done away with. By observing the suggestions of the insurance commissioner, who is working along the right line, our people can save themselves a big sum annually. In the course of his letter the insurance commissioner says:

The abnormally heavy loss of property by fire in South Dakota during 1914 is arousing insurance companies and municipal authorities to the need of more vigorous preventative measures.

Complaint comes to this department from day to day asking for relief, calling attention to the accumulation of rubbish in cellars and back yards, defective chimneys and rank growth of weeds on vacant lots.

Recent numerous calls upon the fire marshal department to inspect dilapidated, old, unoccupied wooden buildings indicate that the people are awakening to the danger of this chief of all menaces.

Nearly every village, town and city in the state has useless old fire traps, and each community owes it to itself to see that these dangerous nuisances are done away with.

It is the department's experience that the most effective aid in attempting to conserve life and property is realized and the best results obtained through and by co-operation with the citizens of the state. I therefore, heartily recommend that the mayors of all cities appoint a week between now and November 1st to be designated as 'Clean Up Week,' have local papers (with their mighty influence for good), ministers and teachers, give this matter the widest possible publicity, have all the people realize the importance of putting their premises in order against the day of needless destruction of property by fire.