TABLE No. 11. Damage to Manufacturing Plants by Fire and Flood. On this table will be found a record of the destruction by fire of property in use for manufacturing purposes during the year. The date of fire, name of firms concerned, location of the consumed or damaged property, character of the industry carried on, and the value of property destroyed, are given separately for each establishment involved. The total number of fires in industrial plants was 117, and the total aggregate loss amounted to $2,396, 290, the losses per establishment ranging from the trifling sum of $50 upwards to $307,000. The aggregate loss as reported in most cases, has been apportioned as follows: buildings, $784,747; machinery and tools, $539,233; material, $234,865; finished product, $345,705. During the twelve months ending September 30, 1911, there had been 106 factory fires, resulting in a total loss of $1,302,860; the losses for 1912 were therefore $1,093,430 greater than was shown by the record of 1911. The next preceding table (No. 10) shows that at least $3,216, 465 was added to the total value of property used for manufacturing purposes throughout the State; deducting from this amount the value of property similarly employed that was destroyed by fire during the same period, and we have a net gain for the year in the value of property devoted to industrial purposes amounting to $820,175. The greater number of fires occurred, as was to be expected, in the larger industrial centers, although practically all parts of the State, where there is any manufacturing industry, had one or more fires. The record for Newark was 28 fires, total loss, $251, 369; Jersey City, 12, total loss, $296,961; Trenton, 10, total loss, $235,519; Paterson, 7, total loss, $66,456; Camden, 5, total loss, $214,915. Thirty-nine other cities and towns report from one to four fires each, all but a few of them small, so far as the value of property destroyed is concerned. |