Fire vs. Steel - the facts
"Prior to 9/11, no steel-framed buildings had ever collapsed due to fire. On 9/11, three steel-framed buildings collapsed, supposedly due to fire." - you've probably heard something along those lines in the past 5 years.
And you've probably also heard the rebuttal, "The planes hit the buildings, the buildings caught on fire, the buildings collapsed - simple as that."
In fact, some lucky viewers were fed the ‘fire caused the collapse’ line almost immediately after the towers fell...
More recently, the folks at Protec Documentation Services (and/or Implosionworld.com) released a paper late last year, designed to rebut various claims regarding the collapses of the buildings at the WTC complex. And they must be doing something right, because even the US State Department refers skeptical visitors to the ImplosionWorld website...
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This post focuses on one single aspect of the Protec/IW paper, specifically Protec's comment in response to Assertion #8 (A steel-framed building has never collapsed due to fire...)
Protec's answer? "The fact is, many steel structures have collapsed due to fire..."
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That answer (and the sentences surrounding it) seemed like a weak and/or disingenuous response. The assertion was about 'steel-framed buildings', the rebuttal was regarding 'steel structures', and the author makes no mention of the number or severity of these other fire-caused collapses. So i did some digging, in an effort to discover what these 'many steel structures' might be.
First stop, Fire Protection Engineering's online archive, which has their Historical Survey of Multistory Building Collapses Due to Fire. More of an 'overview' document, really.
And that led me to NIST GCR 02-843.
This report was prepared by Hughes Associates, Inc. under Contract Number NA1341-02-W-0686.
Their data (not included in the fpe article) shows the other two steel structures which, in addition to WTC 1, 2, 5, and 7, make up the total of SIX steel buildings (in all of modern recorded history) which have collapsed due to fire.
1. One New York Plaza (NY, NY, 08/05/70) - partial collapse
50-story office building. Fire caused several steel filler beams on the 33-34th floors to fall and rest on the bottom flanges of their supporting girders.
2. Alexis Nihon Plaza (Montreal, Canada, 10/26/96) - partial collapse
15-story steel-framed office building. Approximately five hours after the fire started, a section of the 11th floor collapsed onto the 10th floor.
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The NIST report also goes on to list the many steel-framed buildings that have suffered extensive fire damage and NOT collapsed:
- One Meridian Plaza -
38 floors, no sprinklers, 18-hour fire, no collapse. - Mercantile Credit Insurance Building -
12 floors, no sprinklers, fire burnout of floors 8-10, no collapse. - Broadgate Phase 8 -
14 floors, mostly not fire protected, no sprinklers, 4.5-hour fire, temperatures up to 1000C, no collapse. - First Interstate Bank -
62 floors, no sprinklers, 3.5-hour fire, no collapse.
When Brent Blanchard, the author of the Protec/IW paper, wrote that "the fact is, many steel structures have collapsed due to fire", he must've realized that 2/3 of the 'many' structures he was referring to were in fact the WTC buildings themselves.
And he also didn't differentiate between the FULL collapses of WTC 1, 2, and 7 and the PARTIAL collapses of WTC5 and the two examples above.
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So again, just to re-state the undebunkable truth, prior to 9/11, no steel-framed building had ever fully collapsed due to fire.
Hope that's clear enough for everyone.
16 comments:
Hey, thanks for doing this bit of research. I just picked up Skeptic Mag Vol 12 #4 for its 911 analysis. Hoping I might have some of my biases challenged. Alas, not. Phil Mole's piece mentions the infamous near-free fall collapse speeds, as if he's about to refute or explain, but never does.
Then I get to their extract of Blanchard and his claims, which you took on here.
It's amazing how these people have the knack of whipping up words to make it sound like everything is neat and clear, but when you actually stop to think about it afterwards... poof!
Ciao,
Twister
Just passing by and using your research to save me d=some time while dealing with 9/11 shills and morons. Your work is appreciated, well done and thanks.
by the way, I'm a Pyrotechnician and explosives expert who knows and always knew that explosives brought down the buildings and either Blanchard is a liar at every level, or he is a complete moron who never even set off a firecracker in his life. His essay, un-referenced bit of spurious claptarp that it is, proved nothing and half of his cherry picked claims are completely false while the other half are never dealt witn at all beyond mentioning them randomly. He says that Protec had people with seismograps and that other seismographic reports exist which they looked at. They never mention these again, no doubt because the seismic reports I've seen show very clearly that explosives appear to have been involved.
Your post seems somewhat disingenuous.
First the issue of terminology. The NIST report you reference defines collapse thusly:
"Either partial or total failure of the structural framing, members, and/or connections was considered to have constituted a collapse."
If blokes like Blanchard are reference these types of reports and definitions in their own research and publications, then they are quite right in stating that other steel structures have collapsed due to fire. Perhaps it's not the definition you would prefer, but the report you linked to is quite clear as to its intended meaning.
Also, (disregarding my former point) I don't think it's fair to say that "no" steel-framed building has ever collapsed prior to 9/11 by referencing one report by the NIST. By the report's own admission, their fact-finding abilities were limited and hindered by varying factors:
"Commercial news websites did not provide much useful fire data. The one exception was the BBC, from which two major fire-induced collapses were identified. Other news websites did not have powerful search capabilities."
Also...
"The US Fire Administration National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) database was general in nature and did not indicate whether structural failures had occurred. It was apparent that within the fire community’s reporting and tabulation of fire events and fatalities, the occurrence of either partial or total collapse of a structure was not specifically recorded or reported."
Varying other sources they reference (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/pdf/Tr-061.pdf) are focused on entirely separate issues (in this case firefighter safety) and would not be documenting or cataloging the types of collapses this report was looking for.
Although they sampled a wide variety of sources, the actual amount of useful information they were able to glean from many of those sources was limited. This does not mean that other steel-framed collapses due to fire have not occurred, only that they were not found or listed by this report.
The following is speculatory of course, but there could have been plenty of reports of steel-framed building collapses they came across while researching, but lacked sufficient information about said collapse to include it in the paper... ie. A news report of a building collapse due to fire known to have a steel frame, but otherwise void or lacking in building-specific details of the event.
They wouldn't bother including the fact that they were able to identify other steel-framed collapses in their research as that wasn't the point of the report; it was on the "Needs and Existing
Capabilities for Full-Scale Fire Resistance Testing". For some reason you failed to clarify that title, but did decide to include who the report was prepared for, as if that somehow makes the report more relevant or credible for your discussion.
I'm all for skepticism, and applaud your efforts, but I don't think one NIST report is the be-all end-all argument of whether steel-framed buildings can or have 'fully' collapsed via fire.
interesting comments, minion. and i agree with you in part.
i don't think this one report is the be-all-and-end-all regarding the fire-induced collapses of steel-framed buildings.
with that in mind, there are also these comments:
"The collapse of these structures is particularly significant in that, prior to these events, no protected steel-frame structure, the most common form of large commercial construction in the United States, had ever experienced a fire-induced collapse." (FEMA 403, Executive Summary, page 4)
"...the team is unaware of any protected steel structures that have collapsed in a fire prior to September 11." (FEMA 403, Chap. 1, page 20)
"prior to September 11, there was no record of the fire-induced-collapse of such structures, despite some very large uncontrolled fires."(FEMA 403, Chap. 2, page 38)
"Prior to September 11, 2001, there was little, if any, record of fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings." (FEMA 403, Chap. 5, page 1)
"...prior to September 11, 2001, no protected steel frame buildings had been known to collapse due to fire." (FEMA 403, Appendix A, page 9)
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"Long time listener. first time caller"
Yeah anyway, how the question to ask is not how many buildings have collapsed from fire but how many buildings have been left to burn from fire. A subtle difference but important because most people when asked about such things can easily picture lots of buildings onfire but few to mind that have collapsed.
The key point is how many buildings have caught fire and been left to burn by the fire brigade? I think you can see the obvious point i'm making here in that if a buildng like 'win 7' is left to burn because of the danger posed to firemen then clearly it's not that hard to imagine how easy it is for a steel structure to collapse.
Most fires DON'T burn out of control and DON'T have a national disaster occouring whilst it'sgoing on.
To darkknightbob, I don't u read the entire list that was posted. All the steel buildings (on the list ) burned longer then the WTC buildings. And even if somehow the WTC buildings were to collapse due to fire, they wouldn't fall at near free fall speed. Especially WTC5 and WTC7 who weren't even hit by a plane. I hate how ignorant people somehow think that if they dispute one part of the conspiracy it somehow all falls apart, despite a mountain of evidence that they can't or won't account for.
Just out of curiosity, how many of those other buildings were hit by passenger jets?? The claim,"I hate how ignorant people somehow think that if they dispute one part of the conspiracy it somehow all falls apart, despite a mountain of evidence that they can't or won't account for." That goes both ways. I have yet to converse with a conspiracy theorist that is willing to argue all of 9/11. It's like they only concentrate on one aspect of the entire day. Soem do wtc7, other wtc 1&2, some the pentagon, etc. Also, not a one has ever provided any names, dates or any information to back up any claims. Who planted the demolitions? When? Where? How? I'm just saying.
Looking aside of the twin towers … how exactly did building 7 collapse entirely when it wasn't even hit by a plane?
Whatever you believe in regarding 9/11 (and anything else, actually!) THIS is the attitude. Excellent research!
You talked about a partial collapse from a few buildings, but what about the complete collapse in almost a freefall rate of speed?
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