The History of Fire Escapes (2018)

> Btw, there's no retrofitting of existing buildings. Most of the laws only apply to new buildings and existing buildings get better as they're renovated. So buildings in NYC comply to the safety standard of whenever they were renovated last.

But that's the thing that's notable about fire escapes: they were a required retrofit. Building code changes are almost never retroactive, but in response to fires "have two paths of egress" was added, and because it was so important it was made retroactive. It being very difficult to add a stairway to an existing building, external stairways were allowed.

In the UK, there used apparently to be wheeled ladders at certain places to allow people to escape from fires. Here is one http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l58hAZ64A0o/VW9FCenJSSI/AAAAAAAADz...

Because they were moved by hand, these had to be provisioned in each small local area.

Of course, this only worked because the buildings were mostly not very tall.

I was not expecting such an amazing and detailed article, that was so fun to read. I admit, I had to stop about a fifth of the way through as I have work to day, but firmly added to my favourites list for later reading.

The talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KEKtc-5Dc

The patents in this article are great! They give new meaning to the phrase "Patent Troll". Who knew that BASE jumping was actually invented in the early 1900's?

Once, we were all really high and my roommates cig started a small trash fire. Upon noticing it (though being not wholly sure if it was fire or psychedelic distortions), we decided to put the flaming garbage can on the fire escape where it would be tomorrows problem. I mean that's what its for right? A place for the fire to escape. So obvious!

I believe this is the article that taught me the difference between firefighting and amateur response. 95 % of what my SRE team calls firefighting is amateur response.

Sort of related, I was reading a biography about Ford and after a fire at their factory in 1910 or something, they rebuilt it with "fire walls". Fire walls! Of course our term is borrowed from history. I was surprised. :)

I once worked in an old building in London where the fire escape was partly constructed of wood, and also had the lightning conductor attached to it rather than the building itself. It would probably have done pretty well on the "fire", but not so well on the "escape"!

FWIW This is @whereistanya, writer of The Staff Engineer's Path.