Well, we are commenting on an article specifically about the spread of fire in urban areas, as we've seen in LA this week.

Here in the seismically stable UK, we had problems with fire spreading in urban areas [1] in 1666. So we banned wood exteriors on buildings. It works pretty well if you don't need to worry about earthquakes or hurricanes; brick doesn't burn.

This lesson is taught in history classes to 10 year olds, and they don't tend to go into other countries' construction traditions, or reasons not to use bricks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London

I don’t understand the sense of entitlement towards every nuclear family owning a building constructed with stone, steel, and concrete. None of these things are available in a level of abundance to grant them to every person alive. While concrete only construction is more common in developing countries I certainly question the quality. I lived in an apartment like this in South Asia and it had no weather insulating ability whatsoever, the plaster was constantly crumbling, and the doors would jam up. Not to mention the recurring nearby stories of an apartments roof collapsing on its occupant.

I am thankful to live in a county where land and building ownership are more available to the common man than most and many people can escape being perpetual renters. Wood construction enables that. Plus North Americans love to adjust and remodel their homes and have unique shapes with high ceilings etc etc etc which is really helped with our construction techniques. The only thing I hate is termite risk and that could probably be resolved by allowing framing with pressure treated wood

One huge problem with respect to fire resistance, in American home's, are the use of truss connector plates. While they have many advantages in cost and allow impressive cheap big houses, they fundamentally weaken the wood when it burns. Often houses just collapse on that joints, not because the overall beam failed, but this interface. In the end the use of "wood" is blamed, but that failed to address the rootcause.

For me it's the result of pent-up anger from the popularity of drywall and particle board here in the US.

It's not a big leap to go from complaining about the furniture and the walls being made from what seems like highly compressed dust to also complaining that underneath it all is a bunch of sticks.

It so often feels like a house of cards.

Dimensional lumber is often called sticks, in the building industry, probably because it's quicker. For example, if a roof is built from individual pieces of dimensional lumber, instead of pre-built trusses, the building method isn't called dimensional-lumber-built but stick-built.

Brick, stucco, concrete siding are all fire resistant and commonly used in construction in the last 25 years.

Insulation plays into combustability as well, where mineral / rock wool has thermal mass, does not ignite, but us construction has recently favored fiberglass and cellulose for the the costs.

Look at houses in California. Most have fire resistant stucco exteriors. It's the style out here.

It’s not just the exterior material. You also need to screen or eliminate openings that embers can penetrate.

Especially when even in wood framed houses your walls are still stone specifically for the fire resistant properties.

If you wanted to make fun of building practices it would probably be the trend of plastic siding.

> You could just as easily build a wood framed home with an exterior shell that is fire resistant using modern materials or brick.

That is actually how pretty much all new houses in the UK are constructed. They are pre-fabbed timber frames with a brick facade. It's quite common for British people to be snobby about building materials. I wonder how many don't realise their house is timber framed.

A 2x4 is just a big stick. It's smaller in shape than some logs you throw on the fire, and it's nice and dry.

Some of us live in reinforced concrete socialist-built apartment buildings, and our homes don't burn like american houses do. Same for single family houses made from brics and cement (most houses here)

Same for eg. gas explosions, this is one one looks like in us:

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/23081219122...

And this is one over here:

https://www.prlekija-on.net/uploaded/2018_11/eksplozija-plin...

Same for eg floods, pump the basements and ground levels, repaint, move stuff back in. Someone from US I work with on a project had a pipe burst while on vacation, and insurance wrote off their whole house, because of a few days of water.

I mean, sure, you could that, but looking at the photos from fire-affected areas, nobody did that, it's all burnt to the ground.

>Honest question. Why when people describe wood framed homes do they always phrase it like houses made from "firewood", "sticks", "twigs" etc?

Europeans are jealous that they clearcut all their forests 1000 years ago and want to brag up their cinderblock homes that no one can actually afford to buy anymore. 40% down on their 50 year mortgages yadda yadda.