Fire marks

Fire marks were used to identify – and advertise – different insurance companies. These marks were placed on the outside insured buildings.

If a building was on fire, several brigades would attend as quickly as possible. The different brigades would use the fire marks to work out if a building was insured by their parent company. If they didn't see their specific fire mark attached to the building, they would leave the property to burn.

As well as fire marks, firefighters wore brightly coloured uniforms to distinguish themselves from rival insurance brigades. However, firefighters received little training and the equipment used remained very basic.

Did you know?

You can still see some old fire marks on buildings today – don't forget to look up as you walk around older parts of London.