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Can a fire cause a steel/concrete building to collapse?

Feb 14th, 2005 - The biggest fire in Madrid's history gutted a 32-storey skyscraper. The inferno raged for over 24 hours leaving only the concrete shell remaining. The building did not collapse. Oct 18th 2004 - The top 20 floors of Venezuela’s highest skyscraper (50 floors) became a blazing inferno. The fire raged for 17 hours. The top of the building was gutted leaving only the concrete structure. No part of this building collapsed. Sept 11th, 2001 - Two small fires (isolated on separate floors) take hold of building 7 of the world trade Centre. Within a couple of hours this building collapsed. Before September 11th, 2001, no building had ever collapsed as a result of fire alone. In past events, high-rise buildings burned for as long as six days before the fires were extinguished and yet remained standing. Take a look at the attached web pages and ask yourself... do you accept that wtc7 collapsed from fire alone. Modern architecture is against it. http://www.prisonplanet.com/011904wtc7.html http://www.infowars.com/articles/world/madrid_towering_inferno.htm http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/venezuela_fire.html?q=venezuela_fire.html http://wirednewyork.com/wtc/wtc_map.htm An airplane did NOT hit building 7 Billiam - Again, an airplane did NOT hit wtc building 7, they hit buildings 1 & 2 Even so... buildings 1 & 2 both collapsed in about an hour and at virtually the same time. "The collapse was blamed on the failure of the steel pins to hold the horizontal beams together and inadequate inspection prior to the collapse... - was partly melted by the explosion of a tanker truck carrying over 11,900 gallons (45,000 L) of fuel oil" Faulty bridge collapsed due to quite a big explosion. And if you look at YOUR wiki explanation the collapse of the bridge was not fire damage. Nice try but no cigar AMP961 - How many times? NOT THE TWIN TOWERS. I am talking about building 7, look at the wtc map i have provided and the others. Jared - NOT THE TWIN TOWERS - READ THE QUESTION. BUILDING SEVEN - 7 Did you know there was a 3rd building that collapsed? Sixfeettall - Building 5 & 6 were in between the twin towers and building 7, yet these building suffered minimal damage. If you want to believe the official story thats up to you, but you are ignoring cold hard facts and struggling to fit them into reality. Its a cover story and you are assisting in the cover up by being gullible. Also - I should not get my evidence from videos??? Are you serious??? What on earth should i get my evidence from - especially when it is an event that was caught on VIDEO. I suppose you don't have to watch the unofficial videos of people telling the other side of the story. Because why would the government lie? I forgot that governments don't lie.

Public Comments

1. Well it depends on what was fueling the fire, there are many things that can burn, and when highly flammable gases go up in flames, it can vary the heat of the fire. and apparantly the airplanes fuel doesnt burn hotter enough to melt the huge metal shaft going down the center of the two buildings, that is a source of a conspiracy for the 9/11 attacks.
2. Absolutely not unless a substance called thermite is used.
3. The WTC had airplanes crashed through the sides of the building, while your other examples were fire alone. I'm just guessing, but I would say your hypothesis is probably correct that fire alone wouldn't collapse a concrete structure. The reason behind the collapse was probably structural damage.
4. Fire CAN cause steel to melt and a building to collapse. There was a oil tanker fire on Rt 95 in CT, not too long ago, and the flames hit an overpass, melted the steel, and caused the overpass to collapse. This was on a TV show recently, "destroyed in seconds" or whatever it is. Note that this fire was in the open and not restricted. "HORRIBLE ACCIDENT SHUTS DOWN TURNPIKE: On the evening of March 25, 2004, a southbound tanker truck carrying 9,000 gallons of fuel oil collided with an automobile, hit a concrete barrier and split open, emptying its cargo onto the bridge carrying I-95 over Howard Avenue in Bridgeport. The ensuing fire caused the southbound lanes of the bridge to fall four feet, while damage to the northbound lanes was limited. ConnDOT officials reopened the northbound lanes within three days, and within one week, a temporary bridge was installed to carry the southbound lanes of I-95 over Howard Avenue. Officials asked for $11 million to build a new bridge at that location, as well as for cleanup work after the accident."
5. The World Trade Center buildings did not collapse due to fire alone. The fire certainly helped, and yes large amounts of heat can weaken steel. But in this case, there were two large airplanes that crashed into the building, undoubtedly causing structural damage by putting a large moment on the core supports of the building and damaging it, which could allow the ten or so floors above the point of impact to collapse down, causing a large force on the floors below in places that weren't meant to hold so much weight. In addition, the two heavy airplanes were lodged near the top of the building, thus putting extra force on the supports and raising the building's center of gravity. All of these factors could have contributed to a collapse. Osama bin Laden is technically a civil engineer, he's no idiot. That thing was well planned out. Might not have killed as many people as those terrorists may have hoped though though.
6. Once again - The CIA did it, yeah, that's it, the CIA. No, no it was Bush, yeah, that's it; it was Bush and the CIA and and Rumsfeld, too and the French. It certainly was not the failure of that structural steel arrangement severely weakened from the intense heat with the massive impact of the collapsing upper floors onto the floors below. It certainly was not as painfully described by the designer of the buildings himself on national TV. Yes, it was Barbara Bush who plotted the whole thing with the FBI to use Cuban trained circus monkeys carrying secret little thermite thingies all over the place. It was all just to get the inanely gullible conspiracy buffs' attention away from the NASA Moon Landing Hoax, Nessie, Area 51, Yetti, and the Bermuda Triangle. Wow ! It really worked ! It really and truly worked !!
7. Building 7 was a controlled demolition. Apart from being "officially" confirmed, it has been conclusively proven. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xca6o38ZNY There is much more to this then just the collapse of three buildings. To quote Jesse Ventura "The official story says that 19 men armed with parcel knives captured 4 planes and the worlds most expensive and sophisticated air defence system failed to react". They had 4 hours to do so. Building 7 was built at a cost of £300 million and insured at £800 million. Someone made a £500 million profit. That's not to mention the financial wranglings within the twin towers. Jesse tells it best - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxYO21wE38&feature=channel_page
8. You bet that fire can cause a structure to melt. depending on source of fire. the weld supporting the inner frame can be heated and broken easier. If the fire is constanly fueled the building will eventually fall. The trade center had no reason to fall down because of fire. the planes contacted the building and disenegrated all fireproof material. if it were just a regular fire the the two building would still be standing. it all depends on the architechtures strutcture.
9. False question. There were enormous fires in WTC 7, no doubt about that, plus a few thousand tons of debris from the south tower fell on it. Those things are not even in question. There were many witnesses. Stop relying on videos to get your information, and please don't recite the standard rhetoric about information from the government and the "mainstream media". Sometimes the information just comes from the people who were actually present at an event. Besides, there HAVE been steel-frame buildings that collapsed from fire before. Not reinforced concrete buildings, as far as I know, but then again this was a unique situation where debris coming down from hundreds of feet higher landed on and continued on down through a building. That doesn't happen every day. Everybody knows WTC7 collapsed. TV cameras were trained on it for at least an hour before because they had abandoned efforts to save it and they knew it was going to collapse. They also thought the Milleniuim Hotel was going to come down, but it didn't and it was repaired and reopened. What about St. Nicholas Church? That too was crushed by debris and collapsed, and that was never on fire. Why doesn't anyone ever mention that? EDIT: The other buildings did NOT suffer minimal damage. They were destroyed. I was there a week after the attacks and I almost threw up at the sight of the destruction of the place where I had worked for 19 years. I said don't get your info from videos because again--I was there and the videos are one-dimensional photos that show maybe 10% of what was going on. I'm not listening to "the official story" and that rhetoric is getting very old now. I was a witness. You are watching videos. TEAIM: The point of mentioning the church is that it was a full block south of the WTC perimeter--so, the "towers fell straight down into their own footprint" tale, a standard on the CT sites, is lame. I am sorry because I will not be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction. I don't have links. What you are stating as absolute basic truths are not in agreement with what the people who were there tell me. That's pretty much where I'm coming from. I've known these people for a couple of decades, they are professionals, most of them were in and/or outside the building on 9/11, most of them were involved in the analysis and worked at the site during clean up and recovery. Further, the "free-fall" stuff is just bs to me--it's determined solely by watching videos and I know personally that what those videos show is about a tenth, if that, of what you could actually see live. You cannot even see the bases of the buildings. It does not take into account which parts of the 60 feet below grade collapsed and which didn't. But mostly it comes back to what the professionals say. They are not criminals, they are not liars, and they do not work for the federal government. They knew the building standing, and they examined it for months afterward. Do you see this? I have a choice between believing some of the most respected professionals in their fields whom I actually know and who have actual hands-on knowledge, or some videos posted on websites telling me what happened.
10. If it's a large enough MAGNESIUM fire, sure. The kind you mean? Hellno.
11. Great question. I will be happy to answer with provided links to videos which support my statements. First, here is something else to think about, which furthers your question... The Madrid fire did cause a small portion of the steel frame to collapse. Here is a video. This is a zoomed in view of a small section. Use a further panned out view to see the proper portion size clearly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqEQJ7lZTwc&feature=related You can see in the video that the portion that collapsed fell in a crumbling type way. The rate of collapse is much slower than how the entire WTC 7 fell. WTC 7 fell at free fall speed. NIST blamed "thermal expansion" for the collapse of WTC 7. Even if that's the case, where is the explanation for free fall speed? That's just one concern. What about the complete pulverization of the concrete, polyclastic flow of the dust, in addition to other factors? One such factor being... Molten steel was reported by dozens of first responders and NASA (NASA!) even took thermal images of hot spots under all three WTC buildings that fell. The images revealed temperatures of over 1500 degree, an impossibility for jet fuel/office fires. There is a "meteorite" which was found at the base of WTC 7. By meteorite, I mean steel and other elements fused in a giant mass. An open air fire cannot create that. This is science, its not a matter opinion. Here is a video which show the meteorite and molten steel, not to mention a NIST representative denying it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SLIzSCt_cg Also, there is a more recent steel structure fire of a building in Beijing. It burned all night. The fire started at the base of the building and burned through to the roof. When it was through burning, the next morning, the only thing left was the concrete and steel frame. No meteorites or molten steel. No thermite traces. Here's a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghy0SQa6zLk The bangs and pops are fireworks. Fireworks are what caused the fire. Its was a night of the Chinese New Year celebration. The previous video does not show a "before" image of the Mandarin. Here is a before, during, and after of both WTC 7 and the Mandarin. http://www.ae911truth.org/images/other/chinawtc7_lg.jpg PS- A previous answer stated... "What about St. Nicholas Church? That too was crushed by debris and collapsed, and that was never on fire. Why doesn't anyone ever mention that?" I don't think its worth mentioning for several reasons... >Its not a steel framed building. >Molten steel wasn't found at its base. >There were no meteorites found at its base. >The conditions of its collapse seem obvious and scientifically possible. I could go on further but it would only be standard rhetoric. EDIT: Regarding the debris that fell on the church... There is evidence that the towers were taken down using explosives and thermite. The explosives were to destroy the building, and the thermite was used to make cuts in the steel so that it would fall down straight. There is so much evidence of this. Thermite was found in 4 separate dust samples, free fall speed of collapse, pyroclastic flow of dust, these are scientific facts that CANNOT be shunned. There is additional evidence that I have not mentioned here also. Lame? Why don't you try explaining the thermite, free fall speeds of all three buildings, and pyroclastic dust flow? Then we will see who's lame. If you do attempt to answer this, site your sources. Oh yeah, no standard standard rhetoric please. Your mention of the church is just a distraction from the more important, and undeniable facts that I have mentioned in my answer. EDIT: Regarding Sixfeet's response to my specific questions of: 1. Thermite 2. Free fall speed of 3 buildings 3. Pyroclastic flow of dust. You that what I am saying is not absolute fact,and then you say its not consistent with "what people were telling you". Are you trying to say that what people tell you is absolute facts. 1. Dr. Steven Jones was a professor at Brigham Young University. He and his colleagues have shown the microscopic photos, AND have offered their dust samples to any scientists who are interested in doing their own research. I'm glad that you have known people who were there for decades, have them take a look through Dr. Jones microscope. 2. If the free fall "stuff" is just BS to YOU, I can not make any comments about this issue to you. You have to face the facts. Even NIST has reluctantly admitted that the video of building 7 is evidence of free fall speed for the first few seconds of collapse (the rest of the fall is undetermined because it is not in the video). This was pointed out to NIST by professionals. Originally NIST denied free fall speed of building 7, it wasn't until NIST was confronted with a VIDEO from PROFESSIONALS that they were forced to acknowledge the evidence. NIST changed their report accordingly! 3. You did not respond to the issue of pyroclastic dust, and 10 mores of it, then there would be if the buildings had collapsed in a progressive/pancake manner. You left that part out of your response. You were right about one thing, you did not answer the question my satisfaction, not even close. Now go tell all your friends that you've known for decades what you have read here.
12. "two small fires" Hardly. A roaring inferno from fuel and building contents around steel that had the insulation knocked off. Same thing in Building 7 plus diesel fuel in tanks. And steel doesn't have to melt to weaken and become soft. I proposed to the heavy weight denier lady that used to be on The View that we mount a chair on a steel tube sticking out horizontally and build a fire underneath the tube while she sat in the chair and see how long it took to dump her. No reply of course. You show the flaw in your argument with your own data: the two buildings were concrete and stayed in tact and did not have a million pounds of building weight above the fire - the fire was distributed among the floors and burned slowly because of lack of air. Videos can mislead - timing from videos cited from evidence often ignores many seconds of early collapse and then claims it fell too fast.