1. American houses are primarily made of wood because:
   1. It’s cheaper. Wood is widely available in the US, at low costs. We have vast forests that are continuously being replanted.
   2. It more easily meets the seismic resistance standards that buildings in the US require. Much of the US has earthquakes, and wood framed buildings bend, but don’t break, under even fairly powerful earthquakes. Making concrete block or other construction methods stand up to earthquakes requires a lot of steel reinforcement, which is a very expensive way to make most smaller buildings. Very, very few single family homes, anywhere in the world, use these sorts of construction methods.
2. American homes aren’t meaningfully less resistant to fire due to wood frame construction.
   1. It’s basically never the wood frame that is initially lit on fire. It’s the furnishings within a home that will light on fire, and render it unsurvivable long before the fire gets to the wood frame. And those furnishings, the carpet, the fabrics, the paint, papers, and all the other things are essentially the same in the US as they are anywhere else in the world.
   2. A fire that burns hot enough and long enough to destroy the wood frame of typical US construction will likely destroy a lot of brick or blockwork as well. While it may still be standing, any structural integrity of the brick is usually gone.

Here’s the reality of a brick building after a fire in the UK:

Demolition.

Here’s the reality of a brick building after an earthquake:

Here’s a fully engulfed wood frame home:

You’ll note that even here the wood frame is still largely intact. It’s may very well burn and is certainly unsalvageable, but a brick home in a similar fire condition is likely just as doomed.

Here’s a wood frame home that suffered more limited damage:

The wood studs are (mostly) still intact and usable.

If you want to save lives and minimize property damage, the correct answer is fire sprinklers

While you’ll be replacing the furnishings in the room where that fire happens, a fire is unlikely to spread further, and almost certainly be stopped before it reaches lethal potential or results in an unsalvageable structure.

And the US, on the whole, is far more aggressive about requiring sprinkler systems than the UK is.

---

Whilst many US homes are indeed made of wood

UK construction industry use large amount of wood too.

Framing is all made of wood

Floor joist and subfloor always made of wood

so is roofing practically always made of wood

Typical fire damage in the UK sees the brick walls still standing but all the rest gone

U and US homes have a lot of similarities actually and are both susceptible to fire damage.

Things are different in other European countries where everything is made of brick and concrete

even floors and roofs

This type of construction is much more expensive that wood framing and plasterboard and it would not make sense in a place lie the US where there is a long standing tradition of building houses in wood.

And that’s primarily why wood is used. Cost and tradition.

Millions of contractors that know how to use wood that is easy to work, cheap to buy and used in max double storey houses.