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.

Just a guess, but I wonder if the way our houses are built makes them more flammable then houses elsewhere.

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.

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.

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