Grodno fire protection in the XVI - XVIII centuries: decree on improving fire safety

The poor state of fire safety in Grodno prompted King Augustus III to issue an order in 1744 to improve fire safety: "I decree for the safety of the city that Christians in squares, courtyards, possessions, as well as Jews in our city of Grodno, be tenacious, during fires, God guard the hooks for tearing buildings and pouring water. We've always had fire for ourselves. We want to have and order water carriers for the needs of our city of Grodno during the appearance of fire somewhere in our city, even more so should we be, being constantly in that place with water under threat of punishment ..."
However, the burghers did not take seriously the problem of the fire-fighting condition of the city. An example of this is the contract of the priest Prior of Vigersky Kamedula Ona Gwalbert in 1752 for the lease of the courtyard, which was located on Reznitskaya Street. In one of his points, the priest focused on "day and night guards, all vigilance, and caution against fire." The concern, as it quickly turned out, had serious grounds: the following year, a fire destroyed many houses of the burghers, courtyards and wooden palaces of the gentry owners, and also did not bypass the monks' buildings.
""On May 20, 1753, a fire appeared on Zamkova Street in Kamennye Shanyavsky and "went in three directions" - towards the castle, where the stone building of the Jew Chaim was located, towards the tower of the Jew Todris, towards the Khreptovich Palace. Prince Michal Kazimir Radziwill, who witnessed the fire in 1753, wrote in his diary. First, the post office caught fire on Zamkova Street, and the wind spread the flames to the whole city. It was very difficult to fight the fire: there was not enough water. Each resident saved his property. As a result of the fire, the Basilian church with the monastery, the church and the Bernardine monastery, half of the Carmelite monastery, burned to the ground. Many magnate palaces and noble estates were gone - Krasinsky and Brzastovsky, Radziwill (Hieronymus Florian, Mikhail's brother), Baranovich, Lanevsky (grand ducal hunter), Abramovich, Potey (Trotsky's governor), Tyshkevich, Oginsky, Branitsky (crown hetman), etc. Significant damage was caused to the possessions of Sub-Chancellor Sapieha. The author of the memoirs defended his stone palace a little, losing part of it in the fire. "All that burned down is enough that barely a third of the city remains," he wrote.
We can only guess how many human losses the fires caused in the city. For example, during the devastating summer fire of 1737 in Vilnius, which was witnessed by the same Mikhail Radziwill, "the configuration and the Tribunal were postponed for six weeks, since it was impossible to be in a city where there was a stench of corpses, alive and after the death of those burned."
In the resolution of the Warsaw Sejm of 1764 on improving the situation of the cities of the Republic of Lithuania, which were "devastated to the ground and destroyed as a result of frequent fires," much attention was paid to Grodno.
In May 1782, another large fire broke out in the city. The fire started from the stable on Mrs. Kandybina Square on Metropolitanskaya St., where Soro Yankelevichava lived. According to the testimony of Smolensk captain Joseph Kazerovsky, "many Jewish houses burned down." During the fire, residents tore off the roofs to protect their homes from the "nearby" fire. As a result of the fire, 114 houses burned down, 118 were partially damaged. Vytautas' headlight was severely damaged during the fire.
An important step in ensuring fire safety by the city authorities can be considered the purchase of a fire pump. The pump probably appeared after the devastating fire of 1753. This device was a mechanical device for supplying water during a fire, which was moved from place to place with the help of horses.
By 1766, the pump had deteriorated, and, according to the documents, the authorities could not find a master who could repair it. Only specially trained people could use such a pump. Most likely, Grodno workshops could service the pump and use it in case of fires.
In 1787, a Commission of the Grodno magistrate led by Voight Joseph Zelinsky conducted a thorough audit of the fire and sanitary conditions of the city. As a result, it turned out that residents of virtually all the central streets leaving the market (Vilenskaya, Ozerskaya, Mostovaya, Bernardintsev, Kalyutsinskaya, Scalimanovskaya and the lane that went from Zamkova Street) did not adhere to the minimum standards of fire protection. There were no barrels of water in the Jewish quarters, and no hooks for "tearing off" roofs. "Magistrate"s officials also found "dry manure" in some courtyards, and "warehouses of wood near stoves and chimneys" in the houses.
In 1788, the Grodno authorities made another attempt to implement fire safety measures. This was due to the fact that many of the townspeople living there were seriously concerned that "houses were built around them without any precautions from fire, with unkind roofs, pipes, wicker or boards lined with stoves." "" In this regard, the magistrate issued an order on the need for the burghers themselves, the owners of such houses, to tear off dangerous roofs and dump chimneys" and to destroy "insignificant and unnecessary cages." The magistrate decided to appoint a special commission that would be able to compile a list of such houses, and then oblige the owners to correct the shortcomings within a month. Otherwise, such houses were threatened with destruction.
The fact that the magistrate's appeals went unheard is shown by the data of the Grodno civil and military order commission, which devoted as many as nine pages to one of its universal complexes of fire-fighting measures. In the ""resolution" of the commission of 1791, it was noted that, despite the constant fires, the burghers "do not prepare fillings for water, leather buckets, pumps, ladders, hooks, do not erect chimneys on roofs, do not ask them to be cleaned and the roofs are covered with straw and wood." However, not only many manor owners, but also craft workshops did not have the necessary devices. Therefore, according to the order, the burghers and workshops had to "take care of the houses and provide them with devices."
In 1793, another fire in the city severely damaged Vytautas' Headlight. Due to the inability to celebrate Mass, the name of the Orthodox Church passed to the former church of the Jesuit Collegium.
In 1789, the magistrate signed a contract for the construction of a new well with Bavmeister Johann Preisigam in the amount of 2000 zloty, who undertook "to dig out the source with both his wooden and iron materials... 5 cubits deep and wide ... and there are two pumps." A new well was soon built, which is noted by the Grodno plans of 1793 and 1795. It was located in the market between the buildings of the Town Hall, Vytautas Street and Vilenskaya Street.
These were the last attempts of the magistrate to fight fires in the independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth... Pokud vás zajímá, jak fungují strategie zodpovědného hraní v online casinech a jak si nastavit limity pro sázky, aby bylo riziko ztrát pod kontrolou, může vám pomoci nezávislý přehled možností sebeomezujících nástrojů, bezpečných plateb a podpory pro hráče. Podrobnější informace o rizicích závislosti, nastavení herního rozpočtu a možnostech dobrovolného vyloučení z hraní najdete v článku číst více .