Before these codes, in the late 19th/early 20th centuries there were several high profile fires that caused a lot of death and damage, such as the San Francisco fires in 1906, Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and a few others.
Other countries enacted codes relating to building materials to combat urban fires, like requiring buildings to be made of stone. The US was expanding rapidly at the time and so kept using timber construction but compensated but requiring more shit like extra means of egress.
Europe solved the problem by requiring buildings to be made out of fire resistant materials. Amerikkka was growing rapidly at the time and used timber to build housing because it was cheaper and quicker so they had to implement other ways to keep people from burning alive.
Possibly. Building codes come about often when enough people die so it’s possible that not having easy access to a stairwell in an emergency killed a lot of people at some point
I want to add on top of what everyone else said that in most of North America you don’t want to build houses out of stone/brick/concrete.
North America has more tornadoes than anywhere else on earth, by a lot. Tornadoes do not give a fuck what you made your house out of, they will pick it up and throw it at you. And if you’re gonna have to dig yourself out from under what used to be your house, you’d rather it be pretty light.
A good chunk of the area where tornadoes don’t happen, the west coast, earthquakes happen regularly and again, you do not want to build houses out of hard materials, you want buildings that can shake and sway and not fall down.
Cost is certainly a factor too, historically the US has had more access to cheap lumber than Europe has because the Roman’s didn’t chop down all our trees 2000 years ago.
Taking all that into account wood frame construction totally makes sense here, but does have the problem of making things more flammable, and so we have to take other precautions for that. Looking up some stats right now, the US does have more building fires than most other countries, but how likely you are to die in one of those fires is far lower, and it evens out to the US being right in the middle as far as fire deaths go.
A good chunk of the area where tornadoes don’t happen, the west coast, earthquakes happen regularly and again, you do not want to build houses out of hard materials, you want buildings that can shake and sway and not fall down.
just to gently push back on this, most other places with more earthquakes do make their buildings out of concrete and brick
Yeah even Japan, a place with a ton of earthquakes and traditional wood construction, at this point mostly uses reenforced concrete for their buildings. And they perform well, as shown by the 2011 earthquake, a magnitude 9.1 quake that was one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of the destruction was caused by the tsunami, not the quake, and these reenforced concrete structures performed well even with an earthquake of that magnitude.
I stand gently corrected. I do believe my point still stands for the tornadoes part though, which is a problem basically everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains aside from Maine
Also it is cheaper, and since we have figured out how to manage wooden buildings in a way that gives us a very average number of fire deaths, I see no reason to switch. It does mean we need to keep requirements like “two fire escape staircases” though.
probably some combination of tall buildings, stupid electrification standards, and dangerous weather (#1 tornado capital of the world baby!) making house fires worse and more common
I looked at some stats because I was curious after this, more common yes, worse no. The US has a very high number of house fires, but a very low number of deaths per fire, and ends up pretty average on fire deaths per capita.
Presumably this is because we’ve taken these measures to make sure people can get out when fires do happen.
Why has the US ended up with such strict fire safety rules? Like I’m not necessarily opposed, just surprised if anything.
Before these codes, in the late 19th/early 20th centuries there were several high profile fires that caused a lot of death and damage, such as the San Francisco fires in 1906, Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and a few others.
Other countries enacted codes relating to building materials to combat urban fires, like requiring buildings to be made of stone. The US was expanding rapidly at the time and so kept using timber construction but compensated but requiring more shit like extra means of egress.
Europe solved the problem by requiring buildings to be made out of fire resistant materials. Amerikkka was growing rapidly at the time and used timber to build housing because it was cheaper and quicker so they had to implement other ways to keep people from burning alive.
Just a guess, but I wonder if the way our houses are built makes them more flammable then houses elsewhere.
Possibly. Building codes come about often when enough people die so it’s possible that not having easy access to a stairwell in an emergency killed a lot of people at some point
I want to add on top of what everyone else said that in most of North America you don’t want to build houses out of stone/brick/concrete.
North America has more tornadoes than anywhere else on earth, by a lot. Tornadoes do not give a fuck what you made your house out of, they will pick it up and throw it at you. And if you’re gonna have to dig yourself out from under what used to be your house, you’d rather it be pretty light.
A good chunk of the area where tornadoes don’t happen, the west coast, earthquakes happen regularly and again, you do not want to build houses out of hard materials, you want buildings that can shake and sway and not fall down.
Cost is certainly a factor too, historically the US has had more access to cheap lumber than Europe has because the Roman’s didn’t chop down all our trees 2000 years ago.
Taking all that into account wood frame construction totally makes sense here, but does have the problem of making things more flammable, and so we have to take other precautions for that. Looking up some stats right now, the US does have more building fires than most other countries, but how likely you are to die in one of those fires is far lower, and it evens out to the US being right in the middle as far as fire deaths go.
just to gently push back on this, most other places with more earthquakes do make their buildings out of concrete and brick
Yeah even Japan, a place with a ton of earthquakes and traditional wood construction, at this point mostly uses reenforced concrete for their buildings. And they perform well, as shown by the 2011 earthquake, a magnitude 9.1 quake that was one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of the destruction was caused by the tsunami, not the quake, and these reenforced concrete structures performed well even with an earthquake of that magnitude.
I stand gently corrected. I do believe my point still stands for the tornadoes part though, which is a problem basically everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains aside from Maine
Also it is cheaper, and since we have figured out how to manage wooden buildings in a way that gives us a very average number of fire deaths, I see no reason to switch. It does mean we need to keep requirements like “two fire escape staircases” though.
You’d have to control for fire deaths just in multi-unit buildings, though.
probably some combination of tall buildings, stupid electrification standards, and dangerous weather (#1 tornado capital of the world baby!) making house fires worse and more common
I looked at some stats because I was curious after this, more common yes, worse no. The US has a very high number of house fires, but a very low number of deaths per fire, and ends up pretty average on fire deaths per capita.
Presumably this is because we’ve taken these measures to make sure people can get out when fires do happen.