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

"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."

Have you seen ribbon rail that is used on the railways? if so have you seen the railworkers repair and install it? It bends like a wet noodle while they install it and a train could run over it as soon as they have it attached to the rail ties.

I am not saying that the firefighter in question was not exaggerating the facts, but steel, tempered steel can in fact bend like a wet noodle. When cold.

[edit on 21-8-2007 by pinner99]

Aaron Swirski and Lee Robertson both stated it was designed for a 707 impact. This is true. Remember, You also design a tank to withstand a specific type of High impact round, but they can still be destroyed.


We also have Frank Demartini, who stated that it should withstand multiple hits.

However, it did not happen like that. It was not an accident. They designed the towers in case of accidental hit not a terror strike at full speed.

here is an aberrant thought I just had, has anyone looked into FAE explosions?
the planes hitting the towers would act similar to an FAE explosion they have a Huge shock wave, the shock wave would MOVE objects out of the way, IE "dasiy cutter" from Vietnam. they way I understand it, it does little damage from the ignition but the over pressure is tremendous. it seems to me that it would scatter the material (furniture, PC's people) in a wide radius. if that is the case then the burning material would be blasted out of the building. ergo the materials wouldn't beable to burn hot enough to melt steel beams because it wouldn't be there.

F.A.E.

www.fas.org...

could this be this missing link? not sure if it proves or disproves how the towers came down but it is something that I have not seen considered before.

[edit on 21-8-2007 by thedigirati]

I started a thread about this a while back, check out
www.abovetopsecret.com...

What kept feeding the fires? In short - the residue/isotopes from the bombs they used was what continued to incinerate everything at ground zero. The isotopes had half life of days rather than millenia so traceable elements disapeared v. quickly but had their effect. Everything the isotopes come into contact with gets heated instantly. There was no insulation effect, kilm effect or oxygen fueled fire, it was all caused by a few hotspots in the rubble containing bomb residue. Water was simply evaporating the moment it came into contact with the heated elements.

Originally posted by thedman

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

I was at a siminar the other day and the gentleman running the proceedings has been around the block once or twice. He has a web site for the fire services. He had figured out that one small sofa/love seat was equal to 55 gallons of gasoline.

I asked one of our arson investigators, he said that the accepted standard that they use is that 1 gallon of gasoline, that is in vapor form ,is equal to 27 sticks dynamite

I found this in relation to the carpet
www.epa.gov/nhsrc/pubs/reportcarpetemmisions031705
It states that carpet releases about 10,000 btu/lb (23200 kj/kg)
To give it perspective it also shows that coal burns at 12,000 btu/lb (27900 kj/kg). Typical carpet weighs about 3.88 lbs/yd2

I am looking into plastics and some of their thermal releases.

Questions for anybody.... I think the floors were made of light weight steel trusses with concrete ontop for aprox 80cm depth. Was there any type of foam insulation sprayed on them for sound proffing or fire retardent?
I have seen several different things about it. Some have even said that the fire proofing was replaced with a cheaper material. If so, what was that material? I have not been able to locate anything. Was urethane foam used?

Originally posted by Insolubrious
I started a thread about this a while back, check out
www.abovetopsecret.com...

What kept feeding the fires? In short - the residue/isotopes from the bombs they used was what continued to incinerate everything at ground zero. The isotopes had half life of days rather than millenia so traceable elements disapeared v. quickly but had their effect. Everything the isotopes come into contact with gets heated instantly. There was no insulation effect, kilm effect or oxygen fueled fire, it was all caused by a few hotspots in the rubble containing bomb residue. Water was simply evaporating the moment it came into contact with the heated elements.

Just a clarifying question....When you say isotope..are you implying nuclear?

If it is nuclear...What about radiation sickness among the ground zero workers who were on top of the debris every day..day after day? Even if it were days instead of millinea...the damage would still have been done. The human body can not absorb such doses...even small..continuously for hours at a time ..day after day

What about contamination of the heavy equipment?...I know there are pics of trackhoes lifting burning material....Would they not be contaminated? If the material was burning...would not the trackhoes have caught fire? Is that equipment still in use today?....Surely a radiation detector in NYC would have picked up one of these trucks or pieces of equipment passing by. I dont remember anything about any of the equipment being quarentined.

Where there any radiation dectectors among the air quality machines at ground zero?

Originally posted by six
What about contamination of the heavy equipment?...I know there are pics of trackhoes lifting burning material....Would they not be contaminated? If the material was burning...would not the trackhoes have caught fire? Is that equipment still in use today?....Surely a radiation detector in NYC would have picked up one of these trucks or pieces of equipment passing by. I dont remember anything about any of the equipment being quarentined.

Where there any radiation dectectors among the air quality machines at ground zero?

My best guess is there was so much building debris (220 stories worth) that buried these isotopes deep within the rubble pretty much smothering and absorbing its effects. If the isotopes were ontop of the pile it probably would of been a different story.

You know how they dealt with Chernobyl radioactivity right? They buried it in sand, boron and lead. Chernobyl didn't have the benefit of having 110 stories of skyscraper dumped on it, if it did it would of contained the deadly radiation and stopped it spreading. Now WTC was only releasing a tiny fraction of radioactivity in comparison which dispersed and lost its energy rather quickly.

From Leslie:

We had designed the project for the impact of the largest airplane of its time, the Boeing 707. The 767 that actually hit the WTC was quite another matter again.

767: www.boeing.com...
707: www.boeing.com...

First of all it was a bit heavier than the 707, not very much heavier, but a bit heavier.

I disagree here. The 767 had only 76 (?) passengers on board, and certainly wasn't fully fueled for its flight. A fully loaded 707 would be significantly heavier than the 767s actual weight (and remember it had flown for 90 minutes before it had crashed).

But mostly it was flying a lot faster. And the energy that it put into the building is proportional to its square of the velocity, as you double the velocity, four times the energy. Triple the velocity, eight times the energy and so forth.

That is true, but remember the 767 wasn't as heavy as he suggests it was.

And then of course with the 707 to the best of my knowledge the fuel load was not considered in the design, and indeed I dont know how it could have been considered.

It is possible, and was considered - an interview with one of the designers revealed that they had considered a "fully fueled 707".

But, and with the 767 the fuel load was enormous compared to that of the 707

No it wasn't.

it was a fully fueled airplane compared to the 707 which was a landing aircraft. Just absolutely no comparison between the two.

Not true at all, with exception to its velocity which I think we can take as undisputed.

What about Skilling?

Leslie wasn't the engineer that said the towers were calculated to withstand a 707 at 600 mph. John Skilling's group was.

the residue/isotopes from the bombs they used was what continued to incinerate everything at ground zero. The isotopes had half life of days rather than millenia so traceable elements disapeared v. quickly but had their effect.

Just one problem - if the radiation from the remaining isotopes was
powerful enough to burn anything on contact why were there no burns
on anybody. I live only few miles from WTC site and know many
people who were there both on 9/11 and afterwards. None exhibited
any sign of burns or radiation exposure.

Why burned for several months (100 days) was the office furniture, papers
and everything else combustibile that fell with the building. It smouldered
underground for weeks in a manner similar to coal mine fires - many of
which burn for years if not decades (Centralia Pa - been burning since
1962!)

Originally posted by thedman
Just one problem - if the radiation from the remaining isotopes was
powerful enough to burn anything on contact why were there no burns
on anybody. I live only few miles from WTC site and know many
people who were there both on 9/11 and afterwards. None exhibited
any sign of burns or radiation exposure.

Not true. Look into radiation and how far it travels and what get's harmed by it. It's not this all powerful energy that can travel through everything. As far as I know, Gamma rays are they only radiation that could penetrate....and I stress could. Distance from the radioactive source also plays a part. About 10 stories of rubble should do fine in containing the radiation. Now imagine 110.

Why burned for several months (100 days) was the office furniture, papers
and everything else combustibile that fell with the building. It smouldered
underground for weeks in a manner similar to coal mine fires - many of
which burn for years if not decades (Centralia Pa - been burning since
1962!)

You could be right and I still think it's a viable option.

Ever make "turkey in a pit"? I have. You dig a pit, start a bon fire in the pit, let it burn down to coals and throw a turkey wrapped in foil in and bury it. It cooks the turkey pretty well and is delicious.

I could see the R value of tens of stories of crushed (powdered) concrete being high enough to contain the furnace.

The are coal mine fires that have been burning for hundereds of years...Austrailia has a coal mountain fire that has been burning for apprx 6000 yrs.....Fires will burn a) Until all of the fuel is consumed...b) it is extinguished via some method

Just before the calapse of each tower of the you see helicopters past each one before they fall and each one hidden in that smoke produce a spark like light. Could it be missiles of some type? Mentioned on a conspiracy video, and could be a missing factor?

[edit on 28-8-2007 by The time lord]

Originally posted by six
The are coal mine fires that have been burning for hundereds of years...Austrailia has a coal mountain fire that has been burning for apprx 6000 yrs.....Fires will burn a) Until all of the fuel is consumed...b) it is extinguished via some method

I did not know there was coal at the WTC !!!!!

There are onlt a few things that could have kept the fires burning at WTC for over 6 weeks. Most likely it was thermite or something else.

Their is a e-mail i have seen about radiation but it blames the Depleted Uranium from the planes. Problem is the 757 and 767 do not carry Depleted Uranium.

If a fire burns for months, and the area beneath the towers is not solid, where do you think, using common sense, the 'molten' metal may have come from? It was smoldering for months people.

This is a good report about fires till burning months later...

www.cbsnews.com...

No mention of thermite here....

Originally posted by esdad71
If a fire burns for months, and the area beneath the towers is not solid, where do you think, using common sense, the 'molten' metal may have come from? It was smoldering for months people.

A normal fire would not have burned for months with all the tons of debris not allowing oxygen to it.

Also a normal fire would not burn hot enough to keep the steel red hot and molten.

reply to post by ULTIMA1



I believe there have been discussions about Land Fill fires. Fires can and do exist underground.

NOT to get into the molten steel debate... but there was not any testing done to such molten material to determine what material was molten. To say it was steel is inappropriate.

Originally posted by Griff

Ever make "turkey in a pit"? I have. You dig a pit, start a bon fire in the pit, let it burn down to coals and throw a turkey wrapped in foil in and bury it. It cooks the turkey pretty well and is delicious.

Damn that sounds YUMMY ! the entire turkey? with the stuffing too??

Originally posted by CaptainObvious
I believe there have been discussions about Land Fill fires. Fires can and do exist underground.

NOT to get into the molten steel debate... but there was not any testing done to such molten material to determine what material was molten. To say it was steel is inappropriate.

But land fill fires have fuel to keep a fire burning. At WTC you had no fuel to keep the fire burning.

As for molten steel their are several reports and plenty of photos of red hot molten steel. Not to mention water having to be sprayed on the debris and equipment.

Originally posted by CaptainObvious
I believe there have been discussions about Land Fill fires. Fires can and do exist underground.

NOT to get into the molten steel debate... but there was not any testing done to such molten material to determine what material was molten. To say it was steel is inappropriate.

But land fill fires have fuel to keep a fire burning. At WTC you had no fuel to keep the fire burning.

As for molten steel their are several reports and plenty of photos of red hot molten steel. Not to mention water having to be sprayed on the debris and equipment.