One fire burned for 30 hours because out-of-town hoses didn't fit

When the Great Baltimore Fire broke out in 1904, fire companies rushed in from cities as far as New York and Washington, but their hose couplings used different thread patterns and couldn't connect to Baltimore's hydrants. The fire burned for roughly 30 hours and destroyed over 1,500 buildings. It pushed American cities toward a national standard for fire hose couplings, a process that still took almost two decades to complete.

— Standard historical accounts; National Institute of Standards and Technology, Great Baltimore Fire — Baltimore, Maryland, February 1904