Old frame buildings heated with wood and in the process kiln-dried every winter. I imagine they burn to the ground like so much flash paper.
Just amazing to see that type of construction given the tools and infrastructure of the day. I was going to a local church whose congregation was started in the 1700s. The original church was lost in a fire (I think it's some kind of rule for there to be at least one fire in a congregation's history) and the replacement was built in the mid 1800s. It's all brick, made on site. It is a building-within-a-building to make it insulated. They built the interior box, then lay bricks perpendicular to the exterior wall to space it out. Then they built another brick shell around that as the finished exterior. There is a single oak timber that must be 35' long and at least 24" x 24" that runs from one end of the building to the other above the ceiling. To imagine how they got the thing up there is the stuff of ancient Egyptians. There were two fireplaces at the end with hidden chimneys that merged behind the wall and exited the roof as a single chimney. I've done some work on it. Makes me happy to have my fingerprints on it in some small way. Even as a kid, I've loved old buildings.