NEAFC 32nd Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

ENGLAND .ASSOCIATION OF FIP, E CHIEFS
,be here~as your guest, and I am happy to bring you the greetings of the Factory
..Mutual Fire Insurance Companies, and particularly that of the Engineering
Division, £or as you well know, the success, of our companies over the one
hundred and some odd years of. their existence has been in no small part due
directly to the efforts of you and your comrades who have gone on before.
You have made a tremendous contribution to our work, as you have
in the work of all of the other companies such as ours.
It is with a great deal of pleasure and gratitude that we have b~en permitted
to participate in your program.
Our experience with fires comes about in many ways, and, like all the
insurance industry, our experience is burned into us, so to speak.
In evaluating fire cases, we go to great lengths to try to find out the exact
cause of the fire, so that in the training of our men, we can give them a real,
true picture, in order to have them find out and ferret out the hazards, as they
go through the large, industrial plants.
Some o~ the things that we find amaze us, because we know how clever
and how well industry does the job. On many occasions, we, too, have found
it necessary to come to you Fire Chiefs, to get something done, which even
the power.£ul insurance companies find impossible.
And so we do feel, with you, a very kindred sense of responsibility "co the
people we serve.
We find that electrical fires are the greatest causes of fire in our work.
We find that the electrical hazards are the ones that cause the most trouble,
and, in some ways, the most insidious, because they cannot be £ound readily.
For example, you and I know, in most instances, many of the fires caused
through electrical purposes are the catch-all fires, those you cannot put your
finger on, and perhaps it may be through wiring or some other thing like
that. ]But, the strange part of it is that we find, from very exhaustive examination
of our losses, that it is. true.
As we go through plants, we find that the review and the examination
o£ the plants seems to indicate to us that when it comes, to poor wiring, we
have the central, foca ! point of all the hazards, which we first have to look at.
That is No. 1.
There are a number of hazards.. But, under the electrical group, there are
many different phases. For example, the improper installation and maintenance
of an electrical system is to use the prime fire hazard, because from it, stem all
the other things.
In other words, you have heard a particularly lucid and a fine exposition
on LP Gases.. We have done a great deal on LP Gases ourselves. In 90 per
cent o£ the time, these LP Gases are perfectly all right, unless they are involved
in a fire, and that is particularly true in the larger installations. So that that is
only one item, and that is in the matter o~ electrical fires.
I am going to read some of the things about defective wiring.
The fact that it has helped the list of electrical hazards is not news
us, and it is not surprising in view of the extensive use of wiring systems.
all kinds.
Wiring systems are exposed to excessive heat, oil, coal, vibration~ moisture,
all sorts of mechanical breakdowns, and abrasions, and yet the amazing~ thing
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