Another Neighborhood Fire Story

So have you thought of how lovely and historic these old Victorian houses are?  I totally agree. I love them. 

But I don't live in one. I live in a brick building. And I thought -- hey, it's made of brick. Not very flammable, right? So I'm feeling pretty safe.

But I was not aware of the construction details, especially of the interior walls.  So a neighbor today was telling me how they used to make the old walls -- it's a very clever old-fashioned construction of plaster and lathe (that's thin wooden strips) reinforced with horsehair.  And maybe some more horsehair bunched up in the cracks for insulation.  How resourceful and quaint -- from the time when horses were everywhere so hair from their tails really was a viable and efficient way to make insulation.

And it's true! Because once when I (accidentally, of course) knocked a fair-sized hole in the wall, I could see the wood strips and the horsehair.

But did you ever stop to think about the flame-retarding qualities of 100-year-old wood and hair?  The flame-retarding effectiveness is, in a word, zero.  In fact, the opposite.

So I'm thinking that there is a good reason to have a fire engine in the neighborhood. ...