There used to be an auction hall in a barn in my home town that chose to shut down because the powers that be were concerned about all that fuel and wanted the timber wrapped in drywall., thankfully they wouldn’t do it.
You and I know a heavy timber building is no more likely to catch ablaze, and much slower to structural collapse in a structure fire…
That said, we lost a converted barn here to fire the other day with one serious injury, it of course, started in one of the usual ways, with a faulty space heater -
http://www.wmur.com/slideshow/news/19010542/detail.html I pay outrageous rates (5K) for a liability policy for the privilege of working on covered bridges, because form carpenters occasionally impale themselves on epoxy coated rebar on concrete and steel spans…
For all the number crunching actuaries do to hedge their bets, they still don’t get it right. Most especially when it comes to something outside the norm. And no amount of talking will get them to measure and assign appropriate risk to something they can’t pigeonhole.
False assumption and ignorance still sometimes rule the day.
