Re: Debunking The 9/11 Myths - Mar. 2005 Cover Story

Oh my goodness! An actual response! Thank you!

Your reasoning is good, but it's also very much based on "coulda"s.

You are correct -- structural integrity can be compromised well before the melting point of steel. No argument there. At 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, the load bearing ability of steel can be compromised.

For your explanation to be valid, you need to have a situation where properly oxygenated fuel was being used, and the heat was being properly concentrated, as in your wood stove example. (I have a wood stove insert myself, and I have never gotten it to glow red, let alone white... I just don't see that happening without taking special measures.) Granted, jet fuel actually can reach the temperatures necessary to compromise the structural integrity of steel girders, but only under the right pressure and oxygenation. (And, really, as you suggest, the issue isn't temperature of the burning material so much as sufficient heat to raise the temperature of the steel to the breaking point.) In open air, jet fuel simply burns too cool (and the escaping smoke and the steel frame itself would do an excellent job of conducting the heat away) for it to be a threat.

It's one thing to suppose that the heat content was sufficient, but it's quite another to show how it could have concentrated so well to reach the breaking point. So far, this has not been demonstrated. Hypothesized, yes. Demonstrated, no.

What has been demonstrated is that the recordings of the firefighters in the building, on the floors at and near where the fire was occurring, were confident that they could put out the fire. (Then the building collapsed.) This also serves as evidence against the "hot enough" theory. (I've heard these recordings... I suppose they could have been faked, but I've yet to have anyone make such a claim. They were allegedly officially released by the NYFD.)

And, since you brought it up, the behavior of a wood stove (or even a fire place) is an excellent way to counter the "hot enough" theory. When a wood stove or fireplace is giving off visible smoke, the materials are not burning well. Given how much unburnt and unburning material was being emitted from WTC1 and WTC2 (as smoke), it's pretty clear that the materials were not burning as well as they could have.

Couple that with evidence from other steel frame buildings which were clearly burning much better (producing more heat, running higher temperatures, and they burned for far, far longer), with none of them suffering structural failure, and it's pretty clear that something here does not add up in the official story.

In fact, given that "fires" in WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 were all responsible for bringing down the buildings, according to the various "official" stories, we apparently have no need of demolition experts to bring down steel framed skyscrapers. Just set a few fires, with or without cool burning jet fuel, and BAM!, perfect or near-perfect straight-down collapses within a few hours. Who needs weeks to set up explosive charges?