The Great Baltimore Fire and Open Crime Data
This may be a stretch, but we’ve been thinking about how the great Baltimore Fire and access to crime data are related. The Great Baltimore Fire spanned over two days in February of 1904. It took the effort of 1,231 firefighters from 4 different cities to bring the fire under control that destroyed over 1,500 buildings in central Baltimore. At the time, there were no set standards in the fire equipment used by fire departments nation wide. Therefore, the fire lasted for 31 hours because the departments that assisted the Baltimore Fire Department had hose couplings that could not fit Baltimore's hydrants. Similarly, when a police department uses proprietary data distribution, it prevents others from hooking up and helping. The data is supplied (like the water) but the manner in which the data is displayed (the hose couplings) is different. Proprietary data distribution prevents others from using and publicizing the data, further hindering the message to the publi