Every year fire destroys an enormous amount of property in the United States. Of this great loss by which our country is made just so much poorer, for property destroyed by fire is gone forever and cannot be replaced, a large proportion is due to carelessness, thoughtlessness, and ignorance. Nor is it a property loss only. Every fire endangers human life, and the number of lives lost in this way in one year is truly appalling.

It has been estimated that if all the buildings burned in one year were placed close together on both sides of a street, they would make an avenue of desolation reaching from Chicago to New York City. At each thousand feet there would be a building from which a severely injured person had been rescued, and every three-quarters of a mile would stand the blackened ruins of a house in which some one had been burned to death.

Children are allowed to burn dry leaves in the fall, and their clothing catches fire from the flames; women pour kerosene on the fire in their kitchen stoves, or cleanse clothing with gasoline near an open blaze; thoughtless men toss lighted cigars and cigarettes into a heap of rubbish, or drop them from an upper window into an awning; the head of a parlor match flies into muslin draperies; a Christmas-tree is set on fire with lighted candles, or a careless hunter starts a forest fire which burns for days and destroys valuable timber lands. There are hundreds of different ways in which fires are set. The majority of these fires, which cause great loss of life and property and untold suffering, are preventable by ordinary precaution.This little book has been written for the special purpose of teaching children how to avoid setting a fire, how to extinguish one, or how to hold one in check until the arrival of help. Each story tells how a fire was started, how it should have been avoided, and how it was put out: Mr. Brown Rat builds his nest with matches which were left around the house; Careless Joe pours hot ashes into a wooden box; or boys light a bonfire and leave the hot embers, and then old North Wind comes along and has a bonfire himself.

At the end of each lesson there are instructions regarding the fire in question. There are also chapters on such subjects as our loss by forest fires, the work of our firemen, common safeguards against fire, how to act in case the house is on fire, and first aid to those who are injured by fire,—how to treat scalds and burns, how to revive persons who are suffocated by smoke, etc. A thoughtful reading of this book should make the present generation a more careful and less destructive people, and the entire country richer and more prosperous.