Actually timber has a nice property of loosing strength gradually and slowly in case of fire, giving time for people to escape. Steel and concrete reinforced structures tend to collapse when a certain temperature is reached.
Steel and concrete buildings need a huge amount of time to get fires spread enough and hot enough to collapse, except in freak catastrophes like jet plane crashes.
Yes, but my point was that after a "routine" fire the building might be declared weakened and require big overhauls or teardown, whereas a traditional apt building can stroll through many small/moderate fires. Because eg a 50 apartemnt building over 100 years is likely to experience many fires. This may impact investoe expected roi and/or insurance costs.