Sleeping over the Fire

Even our most primitive ancestors were not so dense as to build a fire in their cave and then take up sleeping above it. Well maybe a few did, but their lineage died out very quickly. Sleeping above the fire was one of those innovations that did not get revived until the nineteenth century when we became convinced that we knew what was good and not good in residential construction practice.

Soon every house that had a basement also had a furnace there that burned some fuel or other and conducted the heat to the rooms above. So confident we are that we allow ourselves to easily fall asleep with the fire down below. "The Fire in the Night" is an all too oft occurring tragedy that results from a primitive understanding of a very modern Vulnerable Geometry.