The history of fire safety – part 1
This is a rather momentous article, as it’s the 100th that we’ve written in this series! And to mark the occasion we’re doing a two-part “Special” on Fire Safety, and more specifically its history. And we think it will get you wondering how many lives could have been saved had one hour fire doors always existed … but we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit!
Early days
It’s often written that learning about the practical uses of fire (not just how to start them and how to put them out but about cooking, heating, making things etc.) was one of the greatest leaps in mankind’s history. Yet it was a very long time, and took many disasters and vast loss of life, before any serious consideration was given to fire safety.
Thinking back to the Middle Ages, houses in England were often constructed of timber frames filled in with wattle (a woven lattice of wooden strips) and daub (a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung, and straw). The roofs were thatched, and there were no chimneys. Not only that, but houses were frequently built very close together with over-hanging upper storeys. And not only that, but they typically had a central hearth and – wait for it – straw covering the floor.
It’s fair to say that this represented something of a fire safety disaster, and while statistics don’t exist we can be reasonably sure that when fires started they spread very quickly and killed lots of people.
William the Conqueror’s contribution
He may have invaded England and killed King Harold (1066 and all that!) but in what seems a remarkable act of prescience, not to say common sense, he required all fires to be put out at night. How many people took any notice, and how enforceable it was, is not known, but at least it was a start!
The beginning of fire safety legislation
The first recorded attempt to legislate was made by the Mayor of London in the 12th Century. He required that houses in the city were henceforth to be built of stone, roofs could no longer be thatched, and party walls had to be of a certain height and thickness.
Great progress, but it didn’t prevent a terrible fire in London in the 13th Century where around 3,000 people died. This tragedy led to alehouses, bakeries and brewhouses being governed on their construction, and large tubs of water being distributed during summer months to put out unwanted fires. The beginning of the Fire Service, no less, although it was a long time before dedicated expert personnel were in place …
In the 14th Century central hearths began to be positioned on an outside wall, and chimneys came into use. Unfortunately this latter step didn’t help much, as they were made of hollowed out logs! This changed in the 15th Century when timber chimneys were outlawed in what was the first Act of Parliament relating to Fire Safety. Now we’re getting somewhere!
The Great Fire of London
One of the best pub quiz questions is, how many people died in the Great Fire of London? (If you don’t know, the answer will be in the next article assuming you don’t Google it!) What we will reveal though is that it burned for four solid days and destroyed five-sixths of the City. Thankfully, if anything good can be said about it (apart from helping to destroy the plague virus of course) it led to the first proper code of building regulations relating to fire safety:
- the walls of all new buildings were to be built of brick or stone
- main streets were to be widened
- numerous narrow alleyways were to be gradually phased out
Still no mention of one hour fire doors … but we were on the path!
Make sure you use the experts
In our next article we’ll bring you up to date, but in the meantime if you want expert advice on one hour fire doors (or on any other kind of specialist door) then visit our home page or contact us you’ll be straight in touch with people with a highly successful track record.
