Seattle’s Tinderbox: A Warning from the Ashes of Reno

TIMELY WARNING.

The occurrence of a great fire at Reno, Nevada, day before yesterday, in which some twenty thousand dollars’ worth of property were destroyed, calls to mind the condition of our own city. It is growing rapidly, more so than any other place on the North Coast. Yet its streets, in the business portion of the town, are densely packed with old wooden buildings which will burn like tinder and we doubt if the few brick edifices would be sufficient to check the ravages of the flames, it once they got a good start.

But it is now too late in the season to commence the erection of brick houses, as masonry is always defective in frosty weather, while it would also be impossible for artisans to work in the rain. With the next spring, however, we hope to see a revolution in affairs along Mill and Commercial streets. Buildings can be erected for business purposes one story high and, say, sixteen feet in the clear, which would be not only ornamental but safe and, in the long run, economical. Buildings of this class have been erected in Oakland and San Jose recently, built in such way that upper stories can be added whenever the necessities of trade require.

Let us look at this case from the standpoint of insurance. There is not a wooden store in this town whose occupant does not pay eight per cent. per annum for insurance, while those in brick buildings get it for one-fourth that sum. Six per cent. upon a stock of goods worth ten thousand dollars, is six hundred dollars or fifty dollars per month. This all goes out of the territory to enrich the corporations of San Francisco, Hartford, New York and other eastern cities. None of it ever returns here for investment, in any shape. Now, is there a merchant in our midst, who would not prefer to pay this difference of six hundred dollars per year to a local capitalist rather than a foreign corporation?

The money would be saved here and eventually used in the adornment and improvement of our city.

If wooden buildings for business purposes are to be closely huddled together in the older settled portion of the city, and Seattle grows as much in the next three years as she has in the past two years, we shall some day awaken to see our beautiful little metropolis a smouldering heap of ashes. It is well to take hold of the danger in time and use the 'ounce of prevention that is better than a pound of cure.' Let our common council prescribe certain fire limits and forbid the erection of wooden buildings within these boundaries. It may seem severe at first, but the entire community will be benefited by it in the long run.