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Excerpt from Report of the Ontario Fire Prevention Convention: Held in the Parliament Buildings, Toronto Friday, August 30th, 1918 for the Organization of the Ontario Fire Prevention League, Affiliated With the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal The great object that we seek to accomplish is the reduction of wastage by fire, and at the same time a reduction in the cost of insurance that is now being paid by the people of this Province. I need hardly remind you, who are familiar with the subject of the burden of the fire waste in this country, that at the present time, according to the figures compiled by the Commission of Conservation, altogether there was a loss in Canada since Confederation, of the enormous sum of We have spent in that time in maintaining fire protection. We have paid for fire insurance over and above the sums that have been returned for losses. Each year two hundred persons are burned to death, and five hundred seriously injured from this cause, but the great amount paid in fire insurance premiums not returned for losses, means that those who are careful, and those who eliminate, to the best of their ability, the fire loss, have to pay for those who are careless and are the means of causing fires. The Conservation Commission is of opinion, and it is an important feature for this meeting to consider, that 70 per cent. Of the fires in Canada are caused by carelessness, faulty building construction, etc. The Commission also finds that the Canadian Fire Departments are the best in the world. In the Province of Ontario our losses lately have been aggregating very large sums indeed, and, unfortunately, the amount seems to be increasing. The returns for the last six months show a loss in Ontario of over including the destruction in whole or part, of buildings, at a time when the housing of people is one of the most serious problems we have to meet. We are trying to devise ways and means of overcoming the housing shortage in all sections of the Province of Ontario, yet, taking six months' record, and applying it to the whole year, houses will be destroyed by fire. Taking these at five inhabitants to a house, it means that homes for of our people will be destroyed during the year. In these days of food shortage, the loss by fire in Ontario during the last six months of 330 barns and 601 mercantile stores, with their contents, valued at over two million dollars, is well-nigh alarming. Losses of this character would be bad enough and lamentable enough at any time, but at a time when our money, our energies, and our resources are required in the great war that is being waged for humanity, a condition such as I have outlined and indicated in these figures is one that surely must be remedied by intelligent people in this Province of Ontario. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
