VINTAGE NEWS

On Christmas Day 1813 the Portsmouth Oracle published the following list of fire safety rules. The warnings were serious. Just the week before, much of the city’s Market Square had burned to the ground wiping out small businesses and rendering others homeless. Before fire engines, fire departments and smoke alarms – here are some tips.

READ: The Three Fires of Christmas

NOTICE: Look Well to your FIRE!
Portsmouth Oracle
December 25, 1813

The following, in the form of a printed bill, has been circulating among many families, and put in public rooms as a constant Monitor against the danger of Fire. It is recommended that others should procure it, either printed or copies in writing.

1. REMEMBER that fire is a good servant but a bad master:It cannot take care of itself; and your personal interest, as well as your duty to the public, requires that you take care of it.

2. When you are about to leave your fire at stated times, make your calculations before hand to have no more fire than you can dispose of with safety.

3. Never leave one stick of wood upon another partially burnt.

4. Never leave a stick partly burnt standing in the corner.

5. Examine your brush after sweeping a hearth; especially at night.

6. Never suffer hot ashes to stand in a wooden vessel.

7. Never leave papers or linen near your fire.

8. Never read in bed by candle light.

9. After all precautions; remember that an inhabited building is liable to destruction by fire. Be prepared for an emergency: Keep your water bucket filled. When a fire has begun, suffer it not to be increased by a needless current of air from doors and windows.

10. Should the fire have made such progress as to prevent your escape by a staircase, and should the distance be too great to leap from a window, endeavor to descend by the help of your bed cord, or by tying your bed-clothes together. It would be well to keep a rope in your chamber, for this very purpose.

11 If safety does not appear probable in this way, wrap yourself up in a blanket, hold your breath, and rush through the flames. If water be at hand, first wet the blanket.

SEE ALSO: Poem about the 1813 fire