FIRES IN VIRGINIA AND THEIR CAUSES. The first annual report of the commissioner of insurance for the State of Virginia gives the following details as to fires, loss, value of property involved, insurance, etc., during the eight months between August 2, 1906, and April 1, 1907: Fires, 1,066; value of property involved, $7,886,052; amount of loss, $1,483,636.48; amount of insurance, $5,206,235.50. Buildings—Brick or stone, 214; frame, 829; occupied, 890; vacant, twentysix; outdoors, 152. Cause of fires—Unknown, 293; incendiary—internal, one; incendiary—external, sixty-three; lightning, seventeen; ashes, six; burning chimney, six; burning trash, four; carelessness—adults, twenty-two; carelessness— children, eight; carelessness—workmen, eleven; carelessness—matches, thirty-four; defective flues, 168; electricity, ten; entertainments, 011c; explosions, thirty-eight; fireworks, nine; friction, four; gas, twelve; gasoline, six; kerosene, twenty-one; rats and mice, nineteen; sparks, 116; stoves and pipes, eighty-five; spontaneous combustion, ten; miscellaneous, 102.
