Blog: Dermot Cole
Firecrackers in sawdust insulation?
Published Sunday, April 26, 2009
•I used to live in a cabin on Fifth Avenue near Cowles Street that had sawdust insulation. That doesn't qualify me as an authority on the history of Fairbanks buildings, but I was surprised to read the claim in the paper today that firecrackers were once mixed with sawdust to serve as a fire alarm in a house at that intersection.
Sounds more like a joke than a "factoid." Fire was a constant threat in early-day Fairbanks and that would have been reckless.
If anyone has any evidence about the fire cracker tale, please let me know.
The dictionary defines "factoid" as something that is invented and believed to be true because of its appearance in print or a "briefly stated and usually trivial fact."
There have been lots of fires in buildings insulated w. sawdust. I've been told many times that sawdust catches fire sometimes when it's wet and that's why it's so dangerous, and it's more likely to be wet as a building ages. I remember you writing about that cabin, I think, and I'm glad you didn't have any problems bc of the sawdust. Firecrackers: yeah, a not-funny joke. I guess one can tell tourists anything - and we're all tourists when we go to other places.
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im in one of the cabins at fifth and cowles and we've had the walls apart in places to do work, and never found firecrackers in sawdust. the only insulation here was caulking in the logs, loads of wallpaper and a bit of asbestos board around the chimney.
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