A major concern with tall wood buildings is fire during or after an earthquake. Through a survey of factors including reliability of systems, reliability of water supplies, availability of professional and civilian fire fighting, the paper will examine the overall reliability of sprinkler systems in including assessment of the ability untrained fire fighters to suppress fires in a timber high-rise in the absence of professional fire fighters. A probability based fault tree analysis will provide guidance designers of tall wood buildings in providing acceptable fire safety after a seismic event.
