[kube-system]

Yes, some places in the US DGAF, and in others there's not even a municipality to issue a permit, let alone enforce one. However, these situations typically are in places where high occupancy buildings don't exist.

But if you've read anything about disastrous fires throughout history, the reasoning for modern fire codes is rather apparent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nightclub_fires

The deadliest structure fires in history pretty much have one thing in common: people couldn't get out. There's something to be said for a homeowner who builds their own death trap, but it's a good thing that large commercial properties have to jump through hoops to ensure they don't create a death trap for hundreds of others, just to save a few bucks.

Wildfires are something else entirely -- forests are not man made and their creation is not subject to laws. You wouldn't argue that laws against murder are silly just because you could be attacked by a wild animal, would you? We regulate buildings because people build them.

[dagw]

forests are not man made

Most forests today kind of are, in as much that the way a forest is 'designed' is down to a whole collection of active choices made by the forest owners to intervene or not intervene in different ways. There are lots of things that one can do to mitigate the risks of forest fires, and doing or not doing those things is a choice they make.

[kube-system]

Yes, I'm aware, but you know what I mean. Trees don't have to file for a permit before they germinate. The vast majority of trees are not planted by humans.

[dagw]

My point is that there is probably almost as much that can be done to mitigate forest fire risks as there is to mitigate house fire risks. We know which forests have a high risk of forest fire and we know various techniques that can be used to lower that risk. If we choose to let forests close to where people live become an unnecessarily high danger for forest fires (or let people live close to 'dangerous' forests), then that is a choice.

The vast majority of trees are not planted by humans

The vast majority of trees close to large number of humans are however owned by someone who responsible for them and gets to decide if they grow up and become big trees or not.

[beaeglebeachh]

I'm arguing it's a good thing California will let humans choose to man make a house wildfire trap (forest didn't pick you to put a house there) and they should apply their standard of "die in a fire if you like" to everything. I believe, counterintuitively, it will save lives.

Of course the building inspector sees the charred bodies he didn't prevent, but he doesn't see the frozen and exposed ones he created through his policies that handicap supply. The incentives of code and inspection are horribly perverse.

[kube-system]

The point of building codes and code inspection is so that people don't put others in danger. And in the places that there is a shortage of housing, it is hardly fire code that is limiting supply. It's not as if we could leave out sprinklers and fire escapes from buildings, and all of a sudden, housing would be cheap. The limiting factors of building housing are not this.

[dagw]

It's not as if we could leave out sprinklers and fire escapes from buildings, and all of a sudden, housing would be cheap.

There's a lot more to fire codes than just sprinklers and fire escapes. If you could ignore all fire codes (and related requirements) then it would definitely be possible to build both more and cheaper apartments than you can now. Not saying it's necessarily a good idea, and they almost certainly wouldn't be nice places to live. But a lot of people would take unsafe, uncomfortable and affordable over safe, comfortable and completely unaffordable.

[kube-system]

They'd be slightly cheaper and wildly more dangerous.

But given the demand inelasticity for housing, it's not even guaranteed it would be cheaper.

[fragmede]

They absolutely are. Building to code costs a lot of extra money, and for good reason, because we don't want people to die. If we didn't have codes one could build a capsule hotel style lodging and easily fix the housing situation.

[beaeglebeachh]

Have you ever built a house? It would not even be possible for me to build one with inspections, I would lose my day job. And my house was 40k to diy, do you have any idea how burdensome an up to code contractor installed sprinkler system would be against such frugal costs.

Having built my house the price and accessibility absolutely spirals out of control with code inspections. Remove this madness and let the masses do what I've done.

[kube-system]

No US codes are going to require sprinklers in your single family home. But if someone is building a new medium-rise apartment building with hundreds of people sleeping in it, sprinklers are not a limiting factor in construction, and it is too much of a risk to build it without.

Our regulations often treat different structures in different places differently because they have different risks. That's okay. Your custom tiny home shouldn't be treated the same as an urban high rise.