NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS
high, extinguished burners ignited, and general pandemonium ensued. When,
hours later, the city was able to count its toll it totaled three dead, including a
little girl who had been trying to call her father to tell him that the gas was
leaking; injuries to some thirty others; the complete destruction of 19 homes; and
serious damage to 25 other buildings.
Yet despite this catastrophe, few gas distributing co.mpanies are even today fully
meeting the resultant recommendations of the National, Fire Underwriters or the
United States Bureau of Mines.
A further point of difference between natural and manufactured gas that has
caused ~ much trouble is the former’s tendency to .so dry out the oakum pack’mg between
pipe sections as to cause continucus leaks in lines not elaborately reconditioned for
its use.
The hazard of natural gas arising from its absence of a warning odor is intended
to be met-in those states having a gas code through a requirement for artificial odorization.
However, it has been found that, under certain co.nditions, as the gas is forced
under high pressure through sand and clay it is sufficiently purified by the filtering
action of the earth as to lose its telltale signal.
This tendency of gas to travel for consid’erable distances underground has spelled
disaster in several instances. This fugacious fluid has been known to follow water
pipes and other service lines from even relatively remo.te street leaks into homes, where
in at least two instances of recent record, it has resulted in loss of life and co.mplete
destruction of the buildings, The recommended remedy is to place a dry-well around
entering services so that accompanying gas will be vented in the yard before it can
enter the cellar.
The most dangerous fuel of all from this latter standlodnt is the so-called bottled
gas, or propane. Being heavier than air, it tends to cling to the ground and accumulate
in low places until ignited. By this time a substantial quantity is often present involving
considerable areas and several buildings. In addition to this most undesirable property,
propane is very hard to contain with0.ut strict precautions at all points of handling,
storage, and use..Whe Association of Casualty and Surety Companies, 60 John St.,
New York City 7, has issued an excellent series of pamphlets on this subject, so that
for me to go into extended detail would be repetitious. I do, however, suggest that you
obtain these booklets.
Being practical men, you would have been entitled to the assumption that, even
if the admittedly responsible gas companies choose to disregard fundamental precautions
in the design and cperation of their lines, they would have been restrained by adequate
federal and state regulation.
Unfortunately, you would not have been wholly correct. The Federal Government
makes no attempt to regulate either the construction or operation of such lines,
and while Massachusetts adopted a natural gas code in May, 19~2, it is so weak in
several of its mcst vital points as to offer questionable protection to the public. I refer
most specifically to the low factors of safety allowable under the code for even urban
construction, these having probably been inherited from the 1942 version of the ASA
code or its successors; to the fact that pipe line constructio.n is permitted within 40
feet of an occupied building, a lethal distance in case of either explosion or rupture;
and finally to the fact that the real safety test of the ASA code, requiring test at 1~0%of
operating pressure, has been dropped to retain only the leak finding provisio.n of
,~0 pounds over operating pressur< As is befitting a growing state, New York re-
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