Fire Prevention Week

Oct 6-12 is Fire Prevention Week. 

Fire Prevention

When a residential or business fire occurs it is not only firemen that get involved, but insurance people and damage inspectors.

My daughter is a journeyman carpenter and at a renovation company she once worked for she would inspect damage and make reports on what needed to be done and the company would run the cost to make renovations or repairs.

When he retired from the RCMP after 10 years of service, my father-in-law Al Nolin became an insurance adjuster, investigating fire and fire-related losses. 

The Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association would hold meetings with representatives of the insurance companies to discuss insurance legislation and prevention measures.

Some of the proceedings of a Fire Insurance Company will give a list of claims..

Beaver and Toronto Mutual Fire Insurance Company, Mar 1871

Also reports of local fire departments may have a list of fires and alarms, like this with date, place, owner and cause...

Boston Fire Department - Annual Report 1884 pg.11

 Many people and companies have suffered losses due to forest and bush fires.

Forest fires relief fund1886, Victoria Australia, pg.13

When I lived in Quebec our town had a "Centre de Dépannage" (or help center) where people could donate clothes and household items for victims of fire, flood etc. People and companies near and far feel compelled to help or donate when fire disasters strike.  

These days after a disastrous fire a go-fund-me page might be set up. Regardless of how it's done, a cry for help would go out for donations large and small to a fire relief fund. 

Northern Ontario Fire of 1911 Relief Fund Subscriptions

Check your local library for fire department and relief fund reports, and local insurance company reports of claims. There may also be directories of insurance companies.

Join in Fire Prevention Week activities in your community. 

Relevant Links

Insurance Society and Firemen’s Review

Proceedings of the Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association in Montreal and Toronto

Proceedings of the Fire Marshals' Association of North America

Proceedings at the second annual meeting of the Beaver and Toronto Mutual Fire Insurance Company, held March 21-23, 1871 - claims

Boston Fire Department, Annual Reports

Report of the Fire Department of the City of New York

Forest fires in Canada, 1914-15-16

Report of the Northern Ontario Fire Relief Committee : re administration of funds subscribed for relief of sufferers in fire in Northern Ontario July 1911

The Weekly Underwriter, NY

National Fire Prevention Association USA

The Insurance Directory And Year Book 1939 London

American underwriter's manual and insurance directory for 1862-3

Related Posts

Where's the Fire 
Insurance

Insurance

One day a few years ago I stopped in to visit a friend, and was curious about the huge pile of clothing and stuff in the middle of her living room floor!?! She explained to me that they were hit by lightning during the storm the night before. Most lights and all their electronics were fried.  The electrical surge even ran along the metal bar in their closet, down the wire hangers, and burned anything that had something metallic on it, including belts and the patches on her husbands ambulance uniform shirts. The current even found the underwires in her bras that were in the drawer!! Thankfully her insurance covered such an event and my friend was accessing the damage in preparation for the agent's visit.

I worked a short stint at an insurance company doing dictaphone typing when I was still discovering what I wanted to do.  That wasn't it.  But my father-in-law, after leaving the RCMP, worked for many years as an investigator for the Fire Underwriters Investigation Bureau in Montreal. 

You may find some insurance claims in a newspaper:

One of my ancestors - actually Henry Alexander, the brother-in-law of my great grand uncle - died in June of 1887 in Ottawa. When his wife Jane received $2000 from his life insurance, she wrote an acknowledging letter and the Insurance company posted this letter in the Ottawa Journal...

Search at newspaper archive (US, UK, Canada, etc) websites "insurance claim" and you may learn of some calamities that required a claim, and some disputes and fraud!
   
The Dominion (of Canada) Register and Review (a government publication) in some years listed fires, where they occurred, the value of damage and the insurance paid.  I have listed some below.


Relevant Links:

How to check your house after a lightning strike

History of Insurance

Insurance - Olive Tree Genealogy transcriptions

Insurance Reports for Dominion of Canada - lists of shareholders

The Citizen's Insurance Company of Canada: list of shareholders - 1800

Annual Report of the Mutual Lie Insurance Co of NY; list of policy holders 1864

Handbook of the New York Fire Insurance Exchange, including list of members - 1903

The Boston Fire, Nov 9th and 10th, 1872; complete list of losses

Official List of Committees with Directory of Members and Exchange Rules - 1907

The Ontario Mutual Life Assurance Co, Waterloo; 12th Annual list of claims paid 1881

The Federal Life Insurance Co, Hamilton, Ontario 1896 - list of Medical Examiners

Woolson's economy household inventory and insurance record - c1918

How companies were doing on the Stock Exchange 1908 (in search box type insurance)

Fire Insurance Cases: England, Scotland, Ireland, America; 1729-1839

Fire Insurance Cases: England, Scotland, Ireland, Americal 1840-1848

Digest of Cases Decided in the Supreme Courts of Scotland 1800-1842

Chart of the assessment life associations and friendly societies transacting business in Canada: showing the business done, death claims paid, number of assessments made, income, expenses, assets, etc., of the leading Life Associations and Friendly Societies licensed to do business in Canada ; 1894 to 1903

The Post magazine almanack, the insurance directory, reference and year book (London) - has a limited search at Hathitrust.  If interested you may find it at your library.

Australia - Unclaimed Money from shares, bank accounts and Life Insurance.

Dominion of Canada Register & Review - 1883 - Record of fires and insurance paid

Dominion of Canada Register & Review - 1882 - Record of fires and insurance paid

Dominion of Canada Register & Review - 1886 - Records of fires and insurance Paid

Sessional Papers of Dominion of Canada - Insurance List of Officers and Shareholders 1902

Dominion of Canada -Deaths, Fires and Murder

A Sunday Bonus!!

I was browsing through the Dominion (of Canada) Annual Register and Review publications and for 1883 I came across a list...

Record of Accidental Deaths and Suicides for 1883

 

 

Shows the date, persons name, the city where accident occurred and cause of death. 

 

 

When I got to the end of the list... another surprise!

 

 

Record of fires in 1883

 

 



Shows date, name, place, property, amount of loss, amount paid by insurance.

If you go back the other way, there is a Journal of Remarkable Occurrences. These include murder and mayhem, as well as unusual temperatures and earthquakes.

 

Check index of names near the front or back of each publication, and further look up "deaths of criminals", etc...
Other years have Remarkable Occurrences also.

Check the Contents of each publication for what is there.


Relevant Links
Accidental Deaths and Suicides for 1882

Accidental Deaths and Suicides for 1883

Accidental Deaths and Suicides for 1886

Record of Fires and Insurance for 1882

Record of Fires and Insurance for 1883

Record of Fires and Insurance for 1886

List of available publications of Dominion Annual Register and Review



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