Video summary

Ep 103: Fire Safety in Multifamily Housing with Alex Horowitz (Incentives Series pt. 6)

Main summary

Key takeaways

News and Commentary

Overview

Pew Charitable Trusts researcher Alex Horowitz discusses two new Pew reports (from 2025) examining fire safety in multifamily housing, with a focus on:

  1. Whether single-stair apartment buildings are more dangerous than double-stair buildings
  2. How fire fatalities vary by housing type and by building age

Key claims and findings

  • Multifamily buildings have a better fire-fatality record than single-family homes. Using U.S. fire-death data (2023) coded by building type, size, and construction year, Pew finds that modern multifamily housing has the lowest fire-death risk. Pew also reports that new multifamily is safer than new single-family.

  • Older housing is a major driver of risk. Pew highlights building age as the strongest predictor of fire fatalities, reporting steep safety improvements over time. In particular, modern multifamily built since ~2000 shows far lower fatality rates than older housing (including pre-2000 units).

  • Four- to six-story single-stair buildings appear about as safe as double-stair buildings.

    • New York City: Pew identifies 4,440 four-to-six-story single-stair buildings and compares their fire fatalities to fatalities in other NYC housing.
      • Result: the fire fatality rate in single-stair buildings is reported to be the same as the rate in other housing stock (about 5 fire fatalities per million residents per year, based on the small number of observed single-stair building fatalities over the study period).
    • Seattle: A similar check finds that, in the fatal cases identified, deaths occurred within the apartment of origin and did not appear to depend on having two stairs.

Why single-stair concerns may be overstated

The episode argues that common assumptions—especially beliefs that egress becomes dangerously compromised or that stair-count rules meaningfully reduce fatalities—are not supported by Pew’s evidence.

Horowitz points to mechanisms in modern multifamily construction that likely drive broader safety improvements, including:

  • Sprinklers (likely important, but not the only factor)
  • Non-combustible, fire-rated construction and enclosed stairways
  • Self-closing fire-rated doors (including apartment doors)
  • Connected smoke detectors that alert other occupants

Policy critique: “stricter code” isn’t necessarily “safer”

The podcast challenges the traditional push for more stringent requirements (such as double-stair mandates), arguing they may be motivated by outdated beliefs rather than empirical evidence.

It also emphasizes that two-stair requirements can involve well-documented cost and design trade-offs, which may:

  • reduce affordability
  • increase displacement

Horowitz argues for a holistic safety approach: if stricter code reduces housing supply and pushes households outward (and/or increases homelessness), total harm may rise, even if building-fire risk decreases.

Indirect harms and trade-offs emphasized

The discussion includes comparisons to illustrate competing risks:

  • Driving deaths are described as far more common than fire deaths, so policies that increase commuting distances could offset fire-safety gains.
  • The episode also notes that homelessness is associated with more fire-related deaths, and that policies restricting apartment production (not just stair rules) may increase homelessness—and therefore fire risk in practice.

Growing momentum for single-stair legalization

Horowitz says Pew has observed state-level movement toward allowing single-stair construction (or creating study groups), with fire marshals included in some efforts.

Examples mentioned include states such as:

  • Texas
  • Montana
  • Virginia
  • New Hampshire
  • Maine
  • Connecticut

How Pew uses the research in policymaking

Horowitz describes translating research into real-world, policy-relevant examples of housing reforms—such as:

  • parking mandate reductions
  • small-lot reforms

These examples are referenced in places including Houston, Minneapolis, Austin, Raleigh, Durham, Spokane, and New York.

Pew’s overarching message to policymakers is that some reforms can be “win-win”—improving affordability while maintaining (or improving) safety—while policymakers should evaluate both:

  • direct safety impacts
  • system-wide indirect effects

Presenters / Contributors

  • Shane Phillips — host, UCLA Housing Voice podcast
  • Alex Horowitz — Pew Charitable Trusts, guest
  • Sieva Rodansksi — report author (mentioned)
  • Alex Liz Clifford — report author (Pew colleague; mentioned)
  • Dennis Sue — report author (mentioned)
  • Steven Smith — Center for Building in North America (mentioned)
  • Sandep Trevetti — report author (mentioned)
  • Liz Clifford — mentioned as leading/coding role in the multifamily-vs-single-family report
  • Research assistants — mentioned as coding fire-death data
  • Steven Smith — mentioned as reading a Dutch source
  • UCLA Housing Voice production team — Claudia Bamante, Brett Burnt, Tiffany Louu (production support mentioned)

Original video