Paulius Milčius
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2019–2021
6:43 · 55K views · Oct 4, 2017
A short unscientific fire test comparing a massive timber house with an ordinary house. It shows the wood chars and burns slowly while still holding together.
Linked in threads on wood buildings as a vivid demonstration that heavy timber resists fire and keeps structural integrity.
3 comments from Hacker News
This is what a forest looks like after a fire: [LINK] . Note that the trees are all still there. Wood is surprisingly difficult to burn, and if it does, it will do so very predictably, slowly, with relatively low temperatures, while maintaining structural integrity. This video makes the difference very clear: this video . It's not that wood can't burn, it's that it won't burn significantly.
I've found small fire test, its not very scientific, but shows what I was talking about: this video To correct myself, its the mortar that doesn't likes the fire much more than pure concrete, therefore brick wall has to be usually demolished after fire. But yes, everything depends on intensity of the fire, but I would never say that (properly built) wood house burns easier or faster than brick house, its kind of a myth. It burns differently with different result, and different kind of damages. Where, in the wood house the damages can be _usually_ fixed easier as in brick house.
Wood can actually resist fires more than other building materials such as steel. Yes it does burn, but it also doesn't lose it's structural integrity when heated: this video