What kept feeding the fires at WTC? Did it make the fire hotter?

There was more than one engineering group responsible for the design of the towers. Leslie Robertson is apparently totally irrelevant to the question of whether or not the towers could withstand jet impacts.

A white paper on the structure of the Twin Towers carried out by the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson contained eleven numbered points, including:

3. The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707-DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.


--City in the Sky, p 131

This is from Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson, another group of engineers that were responsible for designing the towers.

What they're talking about is the impact itself. We know for an absolute fact that both towers could withstand the impacts of 767 aircraft, or at least if you believe the "official story", then you have to believe that as well. The impacts didn't cause the collapses. The impacting forces didn't knock out enough columns to cause collapses. The fire had to have done the real damage, more damage than the impacts themselves, or else we've been lied to.

The "skilling" in the firm that did that study, was John Skilling, who assisted Robertson in the design of the towers. Robertson, was much more than "just one" of the people involved.

Originally posted by Swampfox46_1999
The "skilling" in the firm that did that study, was John Skilling, who assisted Robertson in the design of the towers. Robertson, was much more than "just one" of the people involved.

Ok, so what? How are you going to hand wave this away this time? Or is this the hand-wave?

Apparently Robertson did every single calculation himself, remembers doing every calculation himself, and this little bit from Skilling is totally irrelevant and everyone should ignore it and pretend it was never presented, because Leslie Robertson "was much more than "just one" of the people involved."


Can we accept that the towers withstood the jet impacts yet? How many of us are more than 6 years in the past and can't understand that the jets didn't do that much damage? How many people STILL think that the towers couldn't have taken the jet impacts, when they obviously did the very morning of 9/11/01? How many people have looked at the FEMA and NIST reports were impact damages were assessed and seen, once again, that it wasn't that much damage? That the towers took the impacts and remained standing?


If I hit you lightly, and you were then hit by a car and killed, could I say that you couldn't withstand my punch? Where's the sense in that? Where's the sense in saying the towers couldn't withstand the impacts, when it apparently took the impacts about an hour at least just to register with the buildings? Physics is instant. The impacts didn't do it. You guys are arguing fire. Learn your own case?

[edit on 20-8-2007 by bsbray11]

Hey Bert, take a trip on down to Sesame Street and find Ernie, maybe he canback up your claims.

The building was structurally designed to support itself, not to withstand a 767 strike. The hope was that if a plane, lost and crusing at 200+ not 500+ hit the tower, it would survive for evacuation. it could never pass inspection and reopen if they would have stood. I think we can all agree on that based on the design of the WTC.

Ok, here's a prime example of the nonsense that goes on post to post despite being directly in the face of a source explicitly contradicting it.

Originally posted by esdad71
Hey Bert, take a trip on down to Sesame Street and find Ernie, maybe he canback up your claims.

The building was structurally designed to support itself, not to withstand a 767 strike. The hope was that if a plane, lost and crusing at 200+ not 500+ hit the tower, it would survive for evacuation.

This is the exact same thing Swampfox just alluded to, leading to me posting the quote above from a release from an engineering firm that helped design the towers. Did you read it? Do you understand what it says?

it could never pass inspection and reopen if they would have stood.

The contention was not that it could be hit by a jetliner and still be up to legal code without repairs.

I think we can all agree on that based on the design of the WTC.

What on Earth makes you think that, Esdad? Especially given the source above, why would you think that?

[edit on 20-8-2007 by bsbray11]

...A firefighter that mentions steel being bent like wet noodles?

Begging your pardon, but some of us (like me, for instance) haven't taken quotes from fireworkers, police officers or paramedics as being literal for some years now (much for the same reason I don't take oilfield workers and engineers literally). How many quotes do you think I can go and pull up, right now, where firemen spin an ordinary house fire into a case of (OOH-OOH-OOH) 'spontaneous human combustion'? Maybe I should go drag-up the quote of the officer who, under oath, claimed to have never made a racial slur in his life during the O.J. Simpson trial (which was, in the end, damning to the prosecution)?

People love telling stories, and love to exaggerate even more to make themselves and their circumstances seem more worthy. How did the fireman know for certain he was looking at tempered steel? If the fire was hot enough to be 'bending it like a wet noodle', how could he have been observing it to carefully? It also sounds like he's describing a backdraft - and while these are powerful and dangerous phenomena, calling it an 'explosion' already demonstrates a tendancy to blow things out of proportion.

I apologize but this grows very very old and you know it BSbray. My sarcasm I would hope lightens the issue rather than an outright attack. His posts had nothing to do with the OP's thread.

At least you stated it was hyrdocarbons that kept it burning, but why? What fed the fire that burned the furniture? Fire needs oxygen, right? Well, 70 stoires up with high winds and open windows, I can see plenty of oxygen to push and allow the fires inside to spread and grow. This is with discountiung eveything lit on fire in the initial fireball.

The building was NOT designed to withstand a fully loaded 767 flying 500 mph plus. Is there a building that is designed for this? MAybe that is the route we should take to see if there is a structure over 60 or so stories that is designed for an airplane.

Once the outer perimeter was breached, multilple floors became enguled in flames. All of that computer and office equipment. I mean, I know you will debunk it, but NIST did do the fire simulations.

Originally posted by GrinningMoon

...A firefighter that mentions steel being bent like wet noodles?

How many quotes do you think I can go and pull up, right now, where firemen spin an ordinary house fire into a case of (OOH-OOH-OOH) 'spontaneous human combustion'? ...

People love telling stories, and love to exaggerate even more to make themselves and their circumstances seem more worthy.

Especially when the newspaper or etc. itself is also trying to be sold to you, because journalists do the same thing, except they do it intentionally because it's what they're trained to do: sell a story.


I'd like to see the steel that was "bent like wet noodles" from this fire. The language used has a quick pace about it, but I also doubt the events unfolded quite as quickly as one reads about them. And all this, posted as if factual, and then applied to the WTC to try to make an argument that the fires were supernatural? That's what this thread is about.

That, and the apparent fact that the WTC couldn't withstand jet impacts. The guys defending the "official story" on this forum are all over their facts today.

[edit on 20-8-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by esdad71
Hey Bert, take a trip on down to Sesame Street and find Ernie, maybe he canback up your claims.

...Clever. Stupid me I guess, huh?

reply to post by bigbert81


Man, I am having a little fun Bert, welcome to ATS. Now, BSbray, do you discount the NIST models of the burn done in 03?







Here are some steel noodles too.



[edit on 20-8-2007 by esdad71]

Originally posted by esdad71
Now, BSbray, do you discount the NIST models of the burn done in 03?

Why don't you post them?

You're posting pictures of bent columns from the rubble pile, so I'm assuming that you're trying to tell me that they're bent because the fire did it.

I know for a fact that NIST does not support that information. They specifically found NO evidence of heating beyond 400 C or so from the fires, on the core columns.

You can post the links to whatever model you're talking about anyway though, if you want me to look at it.

Did furniture help spread the fire? What about walls, floors, and ceilings? What kind of materials comprised of that could help feed the fire?

Yes it was the furnishings - been trying to make that point for past several
months!

Almost everything in a modern office will burn. Many of the furnishings
are synthetic (aka plastics) which are made from petroleum (hydrocarbons
as alluded to in earlier posts). Plastics burn with some 12000 to 16000
BTU/lb - twice what organics burn at (8000-8500 btu). Think about the
furnishings in an office - chair cushions made of urethane, sometimes
called "solid napalm" from speed and heat it burns with. Most computers
are almost all plastic - case, CDROM, floppy , cables. All that burns.
Ceiling tiles, carpets (synthetic), cubicle dividers (styrofoam/urethane).
Add to that tons and tons and tons of plain old paper stuffed in desks and
file cabinets.

What you have is a fire trap. Just add jet fuel over half dozen floors
Some have tried to made point that jet fuel burned off in few minutes -
yes it did, but in that time ignited everything burnable. Just like charcoal
grill, squirt lighter fuel (which is kerosene similar to jet fuel) and light it
Lighter fluid burns for few minutes and ignites coals which burn for
several hours more.

A FDNY hose team using a 2 1/2" hose can extinguish 2500 sq ft (50 x 50)
Each floor at WTC was over 40,000 sq ft (acre). The amount of fuel and
the shear size made it impossible to extinguish such a fire - even if the
FDNY could reach the fires which because of wrecked elevators and
crowded stairs could not get up to fires

Hope this helps

You guys do know that the steel beams that were UL approved were retested by UL for insurance purposes, and the performed very well under extremely high heat. No issue with the steel under high high heat.
As well a 56 minute burn time on the south tower isn't enough time to properly weaken the core steel anyway. But most people ignore the 28 hour burn time of the windsor tower that never suffered a total global collapse either. Some posters need to do more research.

Hi guys.

It's an interesting site this one. There seem to be many who take the official line, which is baffling to those of us who don't.

I'd just say this:

The towers were built to withstand plane impacts. Aircraft had been invented when they were built, and the architects thought one might just fly into a tower one day. They therefore made the towers hugely strong, they had to withstand the wind force of a hurricane at 1200 feet most days. The architects also knew that planes have fuel on board, and that in an impact this would probably ignite and burn the tower.

For one to fall is bad luck, for two to fall is rediculous, for three to fall is....unlikely.

WTC7 wasn't hit by a plane, and it fell down neatly, like a demolition. To the day I die I will not believe anything different to what I just said, whatever cousin "popular mechanics" has to say about the subject.

The planes should never have gotten anywhere near those towers. American taxpayers spent billions to identify, track and destroy multiple Russian advanced aircraft with every electonic counter defence imaginable. Four civilian airliners could no more have hidden in US airspace than an elephant could hide on the empty pitch at Wembley Stadium.

The Towers were powered down a week before to install IT systems. Lots of men in overalls crawled all over the place. Whatever they used to bring them down, it was certainly military and unknown to us or anyone else. Not Thermite, Thermate, mini nukes or anything else, but something secret that have in their box of tricks that we don't know about.

The way they carted away the remains, body parts and all, is a big clue. WTC was, above all else, a crime scene, and crime scenes are not bulldozed quickly away before anyone can examine the evidence. Three thousand died, and no real investigation of the rubble was carried out. They buried most of it , and the steel was safely smelted down and reused.

And on and on and on. They did this to launch major wars. They told us they were going ot do it in the PNAC. Under Reagan and Bush Senior they were known as "the crazy gang", because they were crazy: old men with nothing to live for, too much money and power, probably getting a kick now out of sending young people to violent deaths around the globe. Somehow they got into power, with brother Jeb's help, and it's been downhill for us all ever since.

They planned this for a long time. It's going to take a long time to make them pay for it. But they will, eventually. Millions of us are going to see they do.

The building was NOT designed to withstand a fully loaded 767 flying 500 mph plus.

According to the engineers and architects that planned and built the building, it certainly was designed to take an impact from the largest airliner at the time (not as large as the 767, but the slightly smaller passenger jet would've actually hit with slightly more energy). In fact, the structural engineers - if memory serves (and I admit it rarely does) - performed some sort of test or otherwise modeled an impact on one of the towers, and it performed so admirably that one of the architects started boasting that it could sustain multiple impacts from jetliners (which is a highly exaggerated claim in and of itself, granted).

I listened to a radio transmission from the firefighters in one of the towers who got up near where the plane hit. They said they had 2 isolated pockets of fire and that "we could knock it down with 2 lines (hoses)."
A lot of smoke does not imply a lot of fire.

listened to a radio transmission from the firefighters in one of the towers who got up near where the plane hit. They said they had 2 isolated pockets of fire and that "we could knock it down with 2 lines (hoses)."

Only 2 FF made it to fire floor - it 78th floor of South Tower

9:52 a.m.Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Battalion Seven Alpha." "Freddie, come on over. Freddie, come on over by us."

Battalion Seven Chief:"Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones."

Ladder 15: "What stair are you in, Orio?"

Battalion Seven Aide: "Seven Alpha to lobby command post."

Ladder Fifteen: "Fifteen to Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "... Ladder 15."

Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."

Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're on our way

They were Battalion chief Orio Palmer and Fire Marshall Ronald Bucca
B/C Palmer was able to get there because found only working elevator
(freight) still functioning - rode it to 41th floor. Palmer was also marathon
runner in excellent shape and as chief would not be carrying heavy loads
of hose/tools. Bucca, a reserve officer in Special forces also lightly
equipped ran from ground to 78th floor!

78th floor was "SKY LOBBY" where people changed elevators from
high speed express to local elevator which stopped on each floor. As
sky lobby did not have large fire load of office furnishings to burn - mostly
elevators and associated equipment. The heavy fires were on the floors
above it - 78 was only hit by wingtip of plane. Dozens of people killed
and injured by debris.

Those who say only 2 small fires are missing point - its like standing on
deck of TITANIC and saying "geez the ship can't be sinking. There's no
water up here" Major fires were on floors 79 to 84 and not visible
from 78.

If I'm not mistaken the WTC complex had multiple Fuel Storage tanks underground which fed the facility so theres your answer.

Originally posted by esdad71
The building was NOT designed to withstand a fully loaded 767 flying 500 mph plus.

No, it was designed for a 707 going 600 mph.

Read the above quote. It's from an engineering firm that actually helped design the towers, in a 13-point release they did to the press. It has a source, too. There's not much I can say if you don't like it, but it's there.

I mean, I know you will debunk it, but NIST did do the fire simulations.

What is there to debunk? They couldn't get the results they wanted, and they did TWO simulations, one with ramped-up, unrealistic parameters. They say this themselves in the report. Read it.

reply to post by bigbert81


Did anyone get a temperature reading in there? The molten metal was there because it was hot. Damn hot. Consider the jet fuel. Consider the amount of FUEL the damn plane was carrying. Or how about the temperature of the fuel when burning and then throw in all the insulation, furniture, and everything else you can think of that would be in an airplane and an office building. That adds up to a whole lotta HOT!