Fire Prevention Week is celebrated every October. Originally proclaimed as Fire Prevention Day in 1920 by President Woodrow Wilson, it commemorated the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge expanded the event to a whole week. He noted that in the previous year some 15,000 lives were lost to fire in the US. Calling the loss “startling,” President Coolidge’s proclamation stated: “This waste results from conditions which justify a sense of shame and horror; for the greater part of it could and ought to be prevented.”
