NIST WTC 7 "Fire" Conclusion Blatantly Contradicts FEMA Report

by arabesque | August 23, 2008 at 11:16 pm
1281 views | 2 Recommendations | 2 comments

NIST Concludes "Fire" Caused WTC 7 “Collapse” when FEMA Report Concluded Fuel Tank Explosion had "low probability” of Knocking Down Tower

NIST claims "fire" had better chance of knocking down tower than planted explosives in bizarre response to interview question

By Arabesque

NIST has finally released their final report into the collapse of Building 7, which collapsed inexplicably on 9/11. The New York Times quoted Sunder who said, "[The] reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery... It did not collapse from explosives or fuel oil fires.” Earlier, Sunder was scratching his head, saying, "We’ve had trouble getting a handle on Building No. 7." Similarly, the collapse baffled FEMA who lamely concluded, "The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.” In other words, despite the fact that FEMA claimed a diesel fuel explosion would have been improbable, NIST is now asserting that mere "fires" knocked down WTC 7? As NIST admits, this would be the "first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building." A 9/11 blogger named Buru Dragon comments on NIST's press conference saying:

[A] reporter appeared to temporarily stump Sunder with a very basic but perfect question. Throughout the presentation Sunder spoke about building seven as if it were particularly susceptible to collapse by even moderate fires because of the design. However Sunder would later go on to explain that it would require a very large amount of explosives to bring it down by demolition... "if the buildings were so vulnerable to collapse due to regular fires alone, wouldn’t they also be equally vulnerable to failure with just a small number of explosives?" Sunder... proceeded to stumble through some convoluted explanation for why only fire could be responsible... [seeming] caught off guard and uncomfortable.

If this wasn't bizarre enough, NIST took 7 years to reach this conclusion. Jim Hoffman commented in response to FEMA's original report:

People who have seen buildings implode in controlled demolitions are unlikely to be as challenged as FEMA's team in understanding the cause of Building 7's collapse. They will notice, upon watching the videos, that Building 7's collapse showed all of the essential features of a controlled demolition.

Because of this, many are openly disputing NIST's explanation. Raw Story explains that "As federal agency declares 'new phenomenon' downed WTC 7, activists cry foul":

Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and a member of the American Institute of Architects, doesn't believe a word of the theory. His group, which has swelled to over 400 architectural and engineering professionals, immediately responded to the Institute's claim in a press conference.... "Tons of [molten metal] was found 21 days after the attack," said Gage in an interview with a Vancouver, Canada television station. "Steel doesn't begin to melt until 2,700 degrees, which is much hotter than what these fires could have caused." "There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through," Gage added during the press conference. His group asserts that thermite, a steel cutting agent, was used to bring the building down.

The press conference by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is available on their website. In an article entitled, Conspiracy theorists 'not swayed' by WTC7 explanation, Raw Story also quotes Richard Gage who explains that molten metal was ignored by the NIST report:

FEMA found [molten metal]... Dr. Steven Jones found it, in the dust that landed in the entire area of lower Manhattan. And he finds it in the chunks of previously molten metal [from the towers].

Jim Hoffman's website 9/11 research addresses this phenomenon of molten steel mentioned in the FEMA report (but completely ignored and omitted in the new NIST report), writing:

The results of the examination are striking. They reveal a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused 'intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.' The New York Times described this as 'perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation."

In response to NIST's report on Building 7, 9/11 blogger George Washington pokes fun at their explanation saying:

NIST has solved the mystery of WTC 7, explaining that a brand "new phenomenon" was discovered, namely, that "thermal expansion"... NIST also discovered another new phenomenon it calls "fire". (NIST explained that fire is hot)... which led to the "thermal expansion".

How impressive could this "thermal expansion" be to explain the collapse of WTC 7? We can only turn to NIST who explain helpfully, "At any given location the combustibles needed about 20 minutes to be consumed." To put this in perspective, WTC 7 collapsed at 5:20 p.m., many hours after the fires were started. The collapse was not entirely a surprise apparently, as some news organizations were reporting it collapsing before it collapsed. Quoting expert opinions and contradictions in NIST's explanation, George Washington also writes:

NIST said fires alone brought down Building 7, but other office fires have burned longer and hotter without causing collapse... NIST [said]: 'No blast sounds were heard on the audio tracks of video recordings during the collapse of WTC 7 or reported by witnesses.'... What about this, this, this, this, this and this?... why were there residues for high-tech explosives at ground zero (and see this)?... what about the pools of molten metal at ground zero for months? And why was the at and under the ground at the site of WTC 7 as hot as the ground under WTC 1 and 2? why didn't NIST address the obvious pre-knowledge (and see this) by everyone around and well in advance that 7 was going to come down?

John Doraemi describes the NIST report as being written in "bad faith":

With the release of the NIST final report on Building 7 we can safely say that the government remains committed to the ongoing cover-up, and that crucial evidence was simply ignored... Most relevant to the WTC7 building investigation is that all of the steel [which they now attempt to use computers to simulate...] was disappeared from history, and melted down in Asia -- ILLEGALLY -- and without any justification whatsoever. Bad Faith is that NIST deliberately misled the public by claiming that "140 decibel" explosives would have been required to take out support columns, knowing full well that evidence of incendiary material (thermate) was found, which produces no such noise.

How indeed could a building be more likely to collapse from small offices fires than from pre-planted explosives? Further to this observation, the New York Times, quoting WTC 7 building owner Larry Silverstein explained that like most modern structures, WTC 7 was reinforced to survive structural damage: "We built in enough redundancy to allow entire portions of floors to be removed without affecting the building's structural integrity."

Barry Jennings, who was in WTC 7 on 9/11, claimed that he was stuck inside of the building after a massive explosion and that firefighters tried to get him out of the building before either of the twin towers collapsed.

Responses from other 9/11 researchers should be expected in the coming days.

recommend This comment thread is now closed
Erik Larson
Erik Larson
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:54 on August 24th, 2008

arabesque, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Good job. NIST thinks that by putting together 1000 pages of authoritative-sounding gobbledy-gook and rigging a computer simulation they can disprove what people can see with their own eyes and hear with their ears. It does work for those who find their sleep aided by comforting lies, but it doesn't work for people interested in facts and truth, and concerned about the way these frauds of explanations are being used to cover up and justify crimes against humanity. The critics you've quoted make a lot more sense.

Watch video of building 7 collapse; this was a 47 story steel-framed skyscraper; it would be a giant in most cities, and it dropped to the ground like a stone. NIST says it was due to a "new" phenomenon, fire causing "thermal expansion" and the failure of a single column leading to the collapse of the entire massively redundant structure- do you believe them?

WTC7 - The Smoking Gun of 9/11 by Arie - Part 1 of 2

I'm looking forward to the reports Dr. Steven Jones, et al make after they thoroughly review the NIST report. Some of the best evidence of fraud and coverup re: 9/11 have been the NIST report and the 9/11 Commission Report. This NIST WTC 7 report is a "draft", although it's clear Sunder is committed to his theory. However, as required, NIST is taking public comments til Sept 15, after that they will release the final report.

0
Richard Schulte

The one point that seems to have been overlooked in the discussion above is that the FDNY made a decision not to fight the fire in the WTC 7 building.  (The collapse of the WTC 1 and WTC 2 buildings damaged the water mains in the vicinity and there was no water supply for the FDNY to use in the immediate area.  In order for the FDNY to fight the fire in the WTC 7 building, the FDNY would have had to pump (relay) water to the WTC 7 site from further north or from the rivers surrounding Manhattan.  A relay operation would have at least partially obstructed access to the WTC site by emergency vehicles.)

It is true that the a steel-framed high rise building in the United States has never totally collapsed as a result of fire exposure (until 9/11).  Major fires which have occurred in steel-framed high rise buildings include the First Interstate Bank Building (1988) in Los Angeles and the One Meridian Plaza Building (1991) in Philadelphia.  In both of these fires, the fire department actively fought the fires, although in the One Meridian Plaza Building fire, the Philadelphia Fire Department made a decision to terminate their fire fighting efforts after warnings that the building was structurally unstable.

If the FDNY had chosen to fight the fire in WTC 7, rather than let the building burn, it is likely that the damage to the building could have been contained to only a few floors. 

It should be noted that the WTC 7 was protected by a sprinkler system, however, the lowest zone in the building did not have a water supply (because of the damage to the water mains in the vicinity).  If the FDNY had supplied the fire department connection for the low sprinkler zone in the building and had shut off the portions of the sprinkler system on the floors which were damaged by the collapse of the adjacent buildings, the sprinkler system would have prevented the spread of the fire up through the building (as did the sprinkler system in the One Meridian Plaza Building fire).  Manual fire fighting activities by the FDNY on floors where the sprinkler system was damaged, combined with the supply of the low zone sprinkler system through the fire department connection by the FDNY would have prevented the collapse of the building.

This approach to fighting the fire was successfully used in the fires at the First Interstate Bank Building and One Meridian Plaza Building.  (The vertical spread of fire through the First Interstate Bank Building was halted by the Los Angeles Fire Department by stationing fire fighters on the floors above the fire.  The vertical spread of the fire through the One Meridian Plaza Building was halted by the operation of the sprinkler system on first floor the fire encountered which was protected by sprinklers.)

One other point which needs to made is that no one, including NIST, has been able to provide a credible assessment of the condition of the spray-fireproofing materials for the structural steel prior to the fire.  Damaged fireproofing materials prior to 9/11 would have impacted the capability of the structural steel frame to withstand the fire on 9/11.  Missing fireproofing is a "fact of life" in a building with spray-applied fireproofing materials applied to structural steel.  (The issue of the impact of damaged spray-applied fireproofing materials was extensively analyzed and discussed in the NIST report on the collapse of the WTC 1 and WTC 2 Buildings.)

Given the above, it is my professional opinion that there is really no mystery as to why the WTC 7 Building eventually succumbed to a fire in the building.  The "controlled-demolition" theory is a nonsensical explanation for an event which can easily be explained by applying a little knowledge of building fire protection.

Mystery solved my dear Watson.

Richard Schulte

Schulte & Associates

Building Code Consultant

Chicago/New Orleans

fpeschulte@aol.com

P.S.  Just in case you're wandering, Richard Schulte is a fire protection consultant with over 30 years of experience in the field of fire protection.  Schulte has written and published over 30 articles on the collapse of the WTC 1 and WTC 2 Buildings since August 2002.  These articles appear in Plumbing Engineer magazine.  These articles are critical of the NIST, but not for the "standard" reasons.  It is Schulte's opinion that the reason for the collapse of the WTC 1 and WTC 2 Buildigs is so obvious to anyone with an engineering background that no investigation was necessary.   Schulte has a BS degree in fire protection engineering (1976) from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). 

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from