Turns out that a wooden beam of the same dimensions as a steel beam tends to be safer in fires. Steel has a tendency to suddenly collapse, whereas with wood you

Turns out that a wooden beam of the same dimensions as a steel beam tends to be safer in fires. Steel has a tendency to suddenly collapse, whereas with wood you've pretty much got a guaranteed minimum time until beams start burning through. Wood cracking turns out to not be much of an issue either because most of the cracking happens before installation: you can just not use the beams with the worst cracks. Even if beams do crack they do so lengthwise which doesn't affect their structural support much if at all. Steel is better in a lot of ways than wood, but simultaneously wood is better than steel in a lot of ways as well.