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Comment by foota | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression that mass timber buildings were actually safer for fires because it takes a very long time to burn through, and unlike steel they won't lose their strength in an intense fire.

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what maters is time to escape befor "total involvement", or confaguration, steel contributes nothing to a fire, fire cant climb or follow it, and it acts as a heat sink, vs wood, which is fuel. All of the historical mass casualty fire storms, involved wooden structure, and steel, concrete,glass, and brick, ended that. Add in modern fire suppresion and fighting equipment and the current situation is quite secure vs/vs fire. edit, another factor is comunication and road infrastructure, where the recent fire storm in California, destroyed many many wooden structures, but the loss of life was exceptionaly low compared to other firestorms in less developed countrys. woods great, love the stuff, have a lot of wood, live in a wooden house and heat with wood, but there is essentialy no way that can be done with a thousand people in a huge building, so steel, which I also love and work with. Everything in it's place.

"total involvement", or confaguration, is what matters true. However fires are more complex than that. Generally the wood frame isn't a source of fuel for the fire until later. The carpet and other furniture that is the same in all builds is likely to burn first. Not long after the wood frame is burning the steel frame absorbs enough heat to fail - but either way you really want to be out long before it gets that bad (and probably are dead if you are not)

> All of the historical mass casualty fire storms, involved wooden structure, and steel, concrete,glass, and brick, ended that.

You're right insofar as lots of improvements have been made to steel-and-concrete building fire safety since the 1970s. Plastics are sometimes still a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

https://nfsa.org/2023/08/22/understanding-combustible-materi...

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