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1948 NEW ZEALAND

FIRE BRIGADES OF THE DOMINION (REPORT ON THE) BY THE INSPECTOR OF FIRE BRIGADES

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency

The Inspector of Fire Brigades to the Hon. the Minister op Internal Affairs. Office of the Inspector of Fire Brigades, Wellington, 26th October, 1948. Sir,— I have the honour to submit the thirty-sixth annual report on the working of the Fire Brigades Act, 1926, for the year ending 31st March, 1948. ADMINISTRATION The North Shore Fire Board was created during the year following an investigation by the Local Government Commission into the fire-protection conditions in the urban area on the northern side of Auckland Harbour. The district consists of the Boroughs of Devonport, Takapuna, Northcote, and Birkenhead, together with a small portion of Waitemata County.- Birkenhead was previously a fire district, so that the number of districts in existence remains at sixty. DOMINION FIRE WASTE The insured fire loss for 1946, the latest year for which national figures have been prepared, was £764,392, an increase of £125,030 over the previous year. The national loss estimated in the usual way by adding one-eighth to the insured loss was £859,941. This figure confirms the indication given in my last report that we were entering a high fire-loss cycle. The fire loss for the year 1947-48 of £992,207 in fire districts shown in the attached statistical table has only been exceeded once —last year —in the forty-one years covered by these reports. LOSS IN LARGE FIRES The major part of the fire loss for the year is as usual caused by large fires. The following table shows the losses in fires in which the loss exceeded £5,000.