I'll give a 'for instance' since some people seem to be having trouble grasping the obvious. I won't use my current house because I live out in the country and it would be far too easy to demonstrate that a warning shot would be safe here.
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This is a house I used to own in Omaha NE;
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The red circle on the back of the house is where the master bedroom was. It was directly on top of the family room. The house had a full basement. Actually it was a two level basement. The first level was below the kitchen (bay window on the back) and the living room (bay window on the front). The second level was below the family room. As I said earlier, I could have fired a warning shot in numerous directions within that house without ever endangering anyone else. First, I could have fired one straight up. Since I use a 45 with a relatively low muzzle velocity, it likely wouldn't have gone very far after passing through the ceiling and roof, even if it managed to get that far. But let's make this more interesting, and more realistic. If I were ever to fire a warning shot, and I probably never would, it's very unlikely I'd do it through the roof. It's easier to repair walls and floors than it is to repair roofs. Let's assume I was in the master bedroom of that house and wanted to warn off an intruder who was in the living room. If I wanted to fire off a warning shot, all I'd have to do is shoot straight down. If the bullet actually managed to penetrate both floors, and maybe furniture as well, it would end up as mushed lead on the basement floor. There would be zero danger to anyone else, either inside or outside of my house. There was nothing in that part of the house that the bullet might have ricocheted off of, and even if there had been it probably still would have ended up in the basement. That scenario would have also applied to the family room. You could have fired through the floors of any of those rooms, at any angle, without any chance of the bullet ever leaving the basement, simply by virtue of the construction of the house. You could have done it through certain parts of the walls with the same assurance of safety too. As for the living rooms and the other two bedrooms, it would depend on what angle you aimed the gun as to whether it would be safe or not. As I said earlier, there are literally thousands of different ways I could have fired a warning shot in that house without endangering a single soul, except maybe the intruder. So yes, it's absolutely possible. It's even easy in many circumstances. But don't confuse possible with advisable.
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Now let's get a couple of things clear here. Am I advocating warning shots? No. Just like any self defense tactic, there is a time and a place for it, and I believe the time and place for a warning shot is probably a very rare event. But just as with every other self defense tactic, the only person who can best judge if it's appropriate or not is the person who is in that situation at the time. Will the decisions be correct 100% of the time? No. Is there any decision on self defense tactics that is correct 100% of the time? No. Is it appropriate for us to sit and armchair quarterback someone who makes a decision in an attempt to save their own life when they were there and we weren't? Absolutely not, and it surprises me that so many here are willing to do that. Certainly we should weigh in on options or alternatives. That's how we learn and cultivate our own tactical mindsets, which is of course a very good thing. But to sit and unequivocally proclaim that tactic B was not appropriate for scenario 12 when we weren't even there to see scenario 12? No way.
