Fire escape Detail ( Delong Building )   In 1876, Philadelphia enacted the first municipal fire escape law in the United States. This ordinance had been proposed by the chief engineer of Philadelphia’s newly organized, paid fire department, partly in anticipation of the crowds expected to attend the Centennial Exhibition but mainly because of deadly fires in factories. The law created a Board of Fire Escapes, which could order the construction of fire escapes on any building, in whatever form the board believed best. Significantly, the law applied to existing buildings as well as new construction, and by specifying that fire escapes be “erected,” assumed these would be structures in or on buildings. Soon thereafter, in 1879, Pennsylvania’s legislature passed a fire escape law. Like the Philadelphia law, the state act specified that fire escapes be “permanent,” and now they also had to be “external.” It obliged not only building owners, but also building managers, to put in the fire escapes. The law was ineffective, however. It gave no guidance on what a fire escape should be like, apart from being permanent and external. Moreover, the legislature provided no resources, no state officers, and no funds to enforce the act. Philadelphia’s City Councils took the occasion of this law to discontinue funding for the Fire Escape Board, thereby allowing the city’s ordinance to lapse. Without any enforcement, few building owners voluntarily complied with either law. For example, five years after the ordinance passed, and two after the state law, few factories in Philadelphia had fire escapes. (philadelphiaencyclopedia.org)