THE WTC TOWERS WERE DESIGNED TO SURVIVE A VERY SERIOUS FIRE, SO WHY DIDN'T THEY? : SF Indymedia

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWERS WERE DESIGNED TO SURVIVE A VERY SERIOUS FIRE, SO WHY DIDN'T THEY?

The following is from a critique of Chapter Two of the FEMA report into the collapse of the WTC, which can be found at:

http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/WTC/WTC_ch2.htm 1.9 MB

Quotes from the FEMA report are enclosed within <<-- -->>

<<--The modeling also suggests ceiling gas temperatures of 1,000 degrees Centigrade (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit)-->

for all of 5 minutes, until the jet-fuel burnt off,

<<-- with an estimated confidence of plus or minus 100 degrees Centigrade (200 degrees Fahrenheit) or about 900-1,100 degrees Centigrade (1,600-2,000 degrees Fahrenheit).-->

This is impossible, as it is well known that the maximum temperature that can be reached by a non-stoichiometric hydrocarbon burn (that is, hydrocarbons like jet-fuel, burning in air) is 825 degrees Centigrade (1520 degrees Fahrenheit). Even worse, the WTC fires were fuel rich (as evidenced by the thick black smoke) and thus did not reach anywhere near this upper limit of 825 degrees. In fact, the WTC fires would have burnt at, or below, temperatures typical in office fires.

If the temperatures inside large regions of the building were above 700 degrees Centigrade, then these regions would have glowing red hot and there would have been visible signs of this from the outside. Even pictures taken from the air looking horizontally into the impact region show little or no sign of severe burning (above 700 degrees Centigrade).

When temperatures above 700 degrees Centigrade are reached within a region, this results in the breaking of the windows within that region. However, once the blast and fireball effects of the impacts had subsided, there appeared to be no ongoing window breakage from either tower, either as evidenced from pictures or video footage or as reported from the ground. In fact, significant areas of window even remained intact within the impact region. This is further evidence that fully developed fire conditions did not spread much through and beyond the initial devastated region, following the impacts.

In contrast, the First Interstate Bank fire in Los Angeles showed greater heating effects over larger regions than those observed in either tower. The temperature attained by the First Interstate Bank fire was clearly greater than that of either of the twin towers as the fire was hot enough to break the window glass (which rained down on the streets below presenting a considerable hazard to those on the ground).

The First Interstate Bank did not collapse.

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THE ONE MERIDIAN PLAZA FIRE

In 1991, a much more serious high-rise fire than those at the WTC, occurred in Philadelphia. The One Meridian Plaza fire is described in the article:

http://www.sgh.com/expertise/hazardsconsulting/meridian/meridian.htm

The fire in the 38-story One Meridian Plaza building raged over eight floors for 18 hours.

It was a significantly more serious fire than those at the World Trade Center.

One Meridian Plaza did NOT collapse.

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THE WORLD TRADE CENTER DEMOLITION.

On the 11th September, 2001, THREE steel framed skyscrapers, World Trade Center One, World Trade Center Two and World Trade Center Seven, collapsed entirely. Other than structures bought down in controlled demolitions, these three buildings are the only steel framed skyscrapers, in the entire history of high rise buildings, to have suffered total collapse. World Trade Centers 3, 4, 5 and 6 also suffered significant damage, but none of these suffered the total collapse seen in World Trade Centers 1, 2 and 7 (in fact, these other buildings showed amazing survivability given that they were repeatedly hit by hundreds of tons of pieces of World Trade Centers 1 and 2, which on impact were traveling at well over 100 miles per hour).

On the 23rd July, 2001, just seven weeks previous, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey signed a deal with a consortium led by Larry Silverstein for a 99 year lease of the World Trade Center complex. The leased buildings included WTCs One, Two, Four, Five and 400,000 square feet of retail space. The Marriott Hotel (WTC 3), U.S. Customs building (WTC 6) and Silverstein's own 47-story office building (WTC 7) were already under lease. Silverstein is seeking $7.2 billion from insurers for the destruction of the center. One would estimate that the chances of the insurers paying out anything at all, are close to zero.

It should be emphasized that World Trade Center Seven suffered total collapse. World Trade Center Seven was neither hit by an aircraft nor by falling debris from the twin towers. If the claim that it was destroyed by fire were true (it is not)

THEN IT WOULD BE THE ONLY STEEL FRAMED SKYSCRAPER EVER TO HAVE COLLAPSED DUE TO FIRE.

Although the WTC Seven collapse warrants the writing of a book, we will deal only with the collapses of WTCs One and Two.

Excerpt from http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/WTC/wtc-demolition.htm The World Trade Center Demolition. 740 KB

or http://www.thepowerhour.com/911-nerdcities/World%20Trade%20Center%20Demolition.htm

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FIREFIGHTERS REPORT THE FIRES IN THE SOUTH TOWER ARE NOT THAT SERIOUS.

A "lost" tape of lost voices, ignored until recently by investigators studying the emergency response on September 11, shows that firefighters climbed far higher into the south tower than practically anyone had realized. At least two men reached the crash zone on the 78th floor, where they went to the aid of grievously injured people trapped in a sprawl of destruction.

Until the building's final minutes, one of the two firefighters, Battalion Chief Orio J. Palmer, was organizing the evacuation of people hurt by the plane's impact. He was accompanied by Fire Marshal Ronald P. Bucca. Both men died.

Only now, nearly a year after the attacks, are the efforts of Chief Palmer, Mr. Bucca and others becoming public. City fire officials simply delayed listening to a 78-minute tape that is the only known recording of firefighters inside the towers. The Fire Department has forbidden anyone to discuss the contents publicly......

According to four people who have heard it, the tape provides new, sharp and unforgettable images of the last minutes inside the trade center complex.

For months, senior officials believed that firefighters had gone no higher than about the 50th floor in each tower, well below most damage. The transmissions from Chief Palmer and others reveal a startling achievement:

FIREFIGHTERS IN THE SOUTH TOWER ACTUALLY REACHED A FLOOR STRUCK BY THE SECOND HIJACKED AIRPLANE.

Once they got there,

THEY HAD A COHERENT PLAN FOR PUTTING OUT THE FIRES (so the fires were not that serious)

they could see and helping victims who survived.

About 14 or 15 minutes before the south tower collapsed, a group of people who had survived the plane's impact began their descent from the 78th floor.....

The tape was recovered months ago by staff members from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, although authority officials could not be precise about the time. In January or February, the Port Authority offered a copy of the tape to Fire Department officials, but they declined the offer.

THE FIRE OFFICIALS SAID THEY WERE NOT TOLD AT THE TIME THAT THE TAPE CONTAINED IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND DID NOT WANT TO SIGN A CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT DEMANDED BY THE PORT AUTHORITY.

From http://www.mishalov.com/wtc_lostvoicesfiredept.html

Two hose lines are needed, Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center. Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire.

"WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO KNOCK IT DOWN WITH TWO LINES,"

he tells (by radio) the firefighters of Ladder Co. 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower.

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E20954%257E979941,00.html

TRY THESE FOR A LITTLE MORE TRUTH ABOUT 9-11.

For faster downloads you can find 3 of the above articles mirrored at http://www.thepowerhour.com/911-nerdcities/nerdcites.htm

http://www.thepowerhour.com/911-nerdcities/World%20Trade%20Center%20Demolition.htm The World Trade Center Demolition. 740 KB
http://www.thepowerhour.com/911-nerdcities/Chapter%202%20-%20The%20WTC%20Report.htm Chapter Two of the FEMA WTC collapse report (with comment). 1.9 MB
http://www.thepowerhour.com/911-nerdcities/American%20Airlines%20Flight%2077.htm The Pentagon Crash Hoax. 1.4 MB

This sounds really interesting, although I'm guessing the combo of losing many columns, parts of the core, PLUS the fire, might have brought WTC down, while this building had no intial loss of columns.

ALSO SEE THE ARTICLES:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1546945.php EVIDENCE OF EXPLOSIVES IN THE WTC SOUTH TOWER COLLAPSE.
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1546708.php THE WTC WAS DESIGNED TO SURVIVE THE IMPACT OF A BOEING 767.

So explain to me how you post inline pictures and text (ie a web page like Nadine M. Posts article above) to this web site (or any Indymedia web site come to that).

Or is it something that only the systems operators on this site are allowed to do.

Click on COMMENT and then enter in HTML coded text into the area marked STEP TWO: ENTER TEXT -- TEXT/HTML. Below this area is a NOTE, "For text articles, URLs will be converted to clickable links. You may also use <a href="URL">LINK in plain text articles (other tags will be ignored unless you select "html format")."

Then select html format from the drop down menu labeled TEXT OR HTML?. Below this menu is a NOTE, "Do not select "html format" unless you include <p> and/or <br> tags!!"

When you have finished adding the formatted comment, click the button labled ADD MY COMMENT

Some idiot claims they have explained how to add a web page to this site. But they definitely HAVE NOT. So again:

Explain to me how you post inline pictures and text (ie a web page like Nadine M. Posts article above) to this web site (or any Indymedia web site come to that).

Or is it something that only the systems operators on this site are allowed to do.

I agree that the heat from the fires has been greatly overstated. Even the FEMA report acknowledges that the jet fuel burned off in a few minutes, but goes on to claim the a poorly vented building fire could generate megawatts of power. Office furnishings, carpets, drapes etc. are not a terribly good fuel and with air only available at the edges very little heat generated close to the core. (It has been claimed that the elevators acted as air vents, but they were designed with fire shutters on each floor specifically to prevent this. Aaron Swisky, one of the team of architects that designed the towers, described the floors as sealed units in the event of fire, and lamented that this design feature might have hindered evacuation.)

Both towers collapses started with failure of the core, yet very little heat could reach the core with fires burning some distance away, and this heat would be rapidly conducted away long before any of the central columns reached the softening point. There's just not enough fuel, even burning under ideal conditions with the heat somehow delivered directly to the core, to raise 47 steel box columns to the ~1000° C.

The sudden catastrophic failures of the cores looked nothing at all like steel softening and gradually yielding, and everything like controlled demolitions: sudden high-velocity ejections of shattered steel and finely pulverized gypsum and concrete blowing out in flat symmetrical sheets, and the tops of both towers going abruptly into free fall.

This is a 2.8mb video clip of the WTC-2 collapse that shows how remarkably flat and level this "demolition wave" is, and how violently material is being ejected from it.

http://ontario.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/--_ground_level_closeup_of_wtc_south_tower_collapse_and_escape_from_dust_cloud.avi

Seriosuly, stop throwing your fancy pie-charts and public broadcast station webstie (Zionist run media) in our faces. The facts are simple. There is only one group of people that are purley evil enough to excecute such a malicious and evil plan and that is the ZIonsits who currently run the UNited States government (from behind the scenes)

Don't play us for idiots. There terrorist tactics (behind the scenes) was just a lame attempt to brand Arab freedom fighters as "extremeists" just because they strive to survive.

We don;t need you facts and excuses, Ms. Post....the truth is starting to unfold and it is just a matter of time before we do away with the Zionist Occupied Governments of the world and their Right Wing Jewish cronies.

Then the truth will emerge and all of us truth seekers will be exhonnerated.

FUCK I$RAEL! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!!

I could explain that to you. But you were rude to the last person who tried, so I wont.

Plaguepuppy wrote ...

>>> Both towers collapses started with failure of the core ... <<<

This is untrue. The tower that was hit dead on failed at the core, but the other tower failed at the outside. That's why the building lurched a bit when the fall began. Because the buildings were so heavy, the laws of physics said they would fall straight down.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html

>>> Very little heat could reach the core <<<

Comments from Dr. Thomas Eagar, a professor of engineering at MIT:

"The real damage in the World Trade Center resulted from the size of the fire. Each floor was about an acre, and the fire covered the whole floor within a few seconds. Ordinarily, it would take a lot longer. If, say, I have an acre of property, and I start a brushfire in one corner, it might take an hour, even with a good wind, to go from one corner and start burning the other corner.

That's what the designers of the World Trade Center were designing for -- a fire that starts in a wastepaper basket, for instance. By the time it gets to the far corner of the building, it has already burned up all the fuel that was back at the point of origin. So the beams where it started have already started to cool down and regain their strength before you start to weaken the ones on the other side.

On September 11th, the whole floor was damaged all at once, and that's really the cause of the World Trade Center collapse. There was so much fuel spread so quickly that the entire floor got weakened all at once, whereas in a normal fire, people should not think that if there's a fire in a high-rise building that the building will come crashing down. This was a very unusual situation, in which someone dumped 10,000 gallons of jet fuel in an instant."

There was a report that unexplained pools of melted steel were found when the bottoms of the building cores were finally cleared. Photos of the demolition show pieces of metal still glowing red as they were removed by the demolition crews weeks after the attacks, suggesting far more heat was at work in the towers than can be explained by the burning jet fuel. If one is looking for an additional source of heat, the most likely explanation is thermite, a mixture of powdered aluminum and iron oxide that burns rapidly at 2200 degrees Celsius, well above the melting point of steel. Thermite is an ideal device to fake a terror attack with since it never registers on chemical bomb equipment, can be made easily from found materials, and produces only aluminum oxide (a white smoke) and melted iron as reaction products. See http://genchem.chem.wisc.edu/demonstrations/Gen_Chem_Pages/06thermopage/thermite_reaction.htm

FORENSIC ENGINEERING

Study Absolves Twin Tower Trusses, Fireproofing

The Collapse: An Engineer's Perspective