That's one of the things that makes me a little uneasy about wooden houses. I've experienced enough fires to prefer stuff that doesn't burn easily, even though wood looks nice and has incredible strength. I would certainly want a lot of windows if I lived in a very strong built wooden house. You would only have moments to get out of it before it killed you.
So how does the breezeway idea work? Are you supposed to knock it down if the Kitchen catches on fire? Or is it just a smaller area where the fire can be fought more effectively before it's hot enough to ignite the main part of the house?
Interlocking timber frame is incredibly strong. These buildings are so strong you can’t knock them down with a Caterpillar tractor. You have to dismantle them piece by piece.
That's really grand so long as you don't need to go through a wall in a hurry yourself.
A breezeway or dogtrot house is constructed with an open hallway through the center of the house with the rooms attached on both sides. It is designed to cool the house naturally.
A log house is pretty fire resistant compared to a modern stick built house. Logs are hard to ignite. Building the kitchen away from the house had two advantages in 1840s Mississippi, it reduced the possibility of a house fire and kept the kitchen from heating up the house in that hot climate.