Scandinavia uses timber frequently. People use what they have and a lot of Europe doesn't have ample timber supplies. North America does so it's used and it's a fine material with a lot of upsides. Modern timber framed homes are quite fire safe and have a few ways to slow the spread of fire down so it doesn't rage. But old ones are generally not for a variety of reasons.

key word here is "modern"

While you see some very old timber buildings in the UK from the 1500s and 1600s, we mostly switched to brick centuries ago since we’d cut down most of our trees.

Lots of new timber buildings in the Nordics as they have plenty of trees.

Nordics I didn't know about.

But I believe most of the new housing developments are mostly wood. Brick is external only and possibly not even structural, the heavy lifting is all timber.

But I certainly no expert so could be wrong.

It seems to vary by region.

> In Scotland timber frame homes already account for around 75% of all new housing, compared to 23% in England.

https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/mmc-news/timber-frame-homes-...

Certainly the vast majority of newer homes I saw in England had brick / breeze block los bearing walls.

Most of the Nordics (if not all) uses timber extensively for construction, even for 10+ stories apartment buildings.