Reply #38: I'll answer both you and outinforce, [View All]

[MadHound]

Since you both are buying into the "fire hot enough to weaken steel" meme. First of all, don't buy into it. Jet fuel, even in ideal circumstances(well mixed with air, but not in a jet engine)will only reach somewhere between 600-700 degrees F. Structural steel starts weakening between 1000-1100 degrees F, depending on the exact makeup of the steel. It doesn't melt until aprox 1500 F.

A few other interesting matters I would wish to point out. I'm a former firefighter, and watching the towers burn, both on 911 and since then, one thing strikes me. Other than the fireball we saw ignited when the second plane struck the South tower(which burned up aprox. half that planes fuel in a spectacular but relatively harmless display), there was very little, if any other visible flames. There is smoke, lots of thick, black, roiling smoke. Now as a firefighter, that kind of smoke tells me a few things. Mainly it indicates that the fire is being smothered, it isn't getting much air, which means that it isn't burning as hot as it would if conditions are optimal. The sprinkler system is activated and working(firefighters and other witnesses on the scene confirm this), the fire itself is having a hard time taking hold, trying to burn fire retardent carpets, drapes, furniture. It is the same principle as when your car is burning to rich and emitting black smoke. In both cases the combustion process is lacking in oxygen, and is burning both cooler and more inefficently. You can observe this for yourself the next time you're camping. When you go douse your fire, throw the water on gradually. Note the thick smoke that comes up? It is because you are depriving the fire of oxygen and smothering it.

A few other details to note. In the tapes and transcripts of the communications between the firefighters in both towers and base, both squads of firemen are calling for only three hoses each. Three hoses! I don't care if they're three two inch hoses, when you are only calling for three of them, that means that the fire IS controlable. And by all accounts, it was. Both firemen in the towers and witnesses who made it out alive all said that while there was some damage, the fires weren't major and were fulling expecting for them to be brought under control. As a fireman, part of your job, part of your ability to survive is to make quick accurate assements of how bad a fire is. If these guys were saying that it was completely controlable, then I believe them. This is born out by surviving witnesses, who also mentioned(as did the firemen) that the sprinkly system was working perfectly, and that the fire retardent furniture, carpet and other items were making it difficult for the fire to catch hold.

None of this sounds like a fire that is raging out of control, weakening or melting steel. Instead, it sounds like a couple of towers that have withstood a tremendous blow, but will keep on standing. Emergency measures were fully funtional and operating well. The fire was being suppressed from the moment it started. And remember, on the South Tower, which collapsed first, half of the planes fuel load was dispersed in a showy, but harmless fireball. And yet they still want us to suspend our own good judgement and believe that the structural steel weakened and collapsed:eyes: Don't fall for that line. One other little matter, and that is how the towers came down, straight down. For the moment, let us suspend disbelieve and say that the steel did weaken and give. By all rules of physics that I know, the top of the towers should have fallen over towards the source of the heat melting the steel, not straight down. To get a better idea of this, do this little experiment. Get yourself a lighter and a candle, the long skinny taper kind. Set the candle in a holder, and lighting up the lighter, direct the flame towards one spot on the candle, about a third of the way down from the top of the candle. Let it melt and burn, and note, as the wax gets soft, which direction the candle falls. And move the lighter when it does fall, for it will be right in the direction of where you have been directing the flame. Same physics applies to steel and fire, and yet the towers went straight down. Hmmm.

All in all, I think that the whole "fire weakened and collapsed the Towers" line is a bunch of BS. I think that what we saw that day on TV was the Big Lie, going down, straight down. What we are looking at is a controlled demolition, not a fiery collapse.