Why did buildings burn down so often in the early part of the last century?

Question

Was it just the poor wiring?

Answer 1

They were made of wood. Wood is OK for isolated houses, but not buildings next to each other.

Not wiring, these fires were before that.

One town I'm familiar with has a large percentage of downtown completely burned in 1802, 1805, 1813, 1846.

Finally the building code was changed to require brick buildings in the downtown area.

.

Answer 2

Poor everything by modern buildings standards.

Since most of the gas piping they used

was also ready to bust too.

Answer 3

Poor wiring (made of aluminum, not copper), people still used candles, and homes were not protected with circuit breakers so I'd imagine power surging was a big problem.

Answer 4

Everybody smoked. Much more so than at any time since. As well, open fires were common, candles and oil lanterns were used everywhere. Where lanterns were not used, open gas flares were common. Nothing was made with synthetics or fire retardent materials. Wood, paper and tar were the common building materials, all of which burn.

The miracle is that it didn't happen much, much more often.