READ BEFORE POSTING! World Trade Center Terror Attack?

[Fred Hansen]

"Other high-rise buildings have survived intense multi-floor fires. In 1988 five floors of the 62-story First Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles burned for 3 1/2 hours without causing the building to collapse. Three years later, the upper nine floors of Philadelphia's One Meridian Plaza burned until sprinklers eventually extinguished the flames."

Did the article mention which (if any) of those buildings were full of jet fuel when they burned? The planes that hit both twin towers were in the air less than an hour, and they were fueled for trans-continental flight.

Way to post select sentences out of context.

Out of context is all conspiracy theorists ever have to hold on to. Reality beats them every time, so they have to go with a skewed version of reality.

 

[redhawk41]

"Two hose lines are needed, Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center. Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire. "We should be able to knock it down with two lines," he tells the firefighters of Ladder Company 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/n...538a058ba4b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE&oref=login

For login:
http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=http://www.nytimes.com/

 

[DAVID NANCARROW]

The Learning Channel ran a show on the tower's collapse, and an engineer stated that the sprayed on insulation being knocked off the steel beams was a contributing factor in the collapse. They then showed a pretty convincing demonstration of it. I'm not a certified engineer, but what they said made pretty good sense to me.

 

[shootinstudent]

Redhawk41,

For clarity's sake, could you tell us what you think these quotes you're posting demonstrate? All I'm seeing is that they demonstrate that FE would like to learn more about the effects of fire in the collapse. What do you think all these quotes should lead us to conclude?

 

[redhawk41]

not everyone agrees completely with the official government story.

all folks that don't agree completely with the official government story are not 'conspiracy theorists'.

a little healthy skepticism is not a bad thing. especially when it comes to the government.

 

[novus collectus]

all folks that don't agree completely with the official government story are not 'conspiracy theorists'.

Yes, some of them are people still in the stage of grief that includes denial. Many of the survivors, or the dead's family members, cannot accept the easy answer (or what they think is the easy answer) and are looking for a way to quell their grief by thinking that the reason they fail to feel closure, is that there is something unknown about what happened. They are often confusing the grief they feel with these theories that, more often than not, was created by a "conspiracy theorist", which lets them channel the bad feelings, and avoid depression, with the new purpose they now have of "revealing the truth".





(IMO)

 

[Fred Hansen]

"Two hose lines are needed, Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center. Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire. "We should be able to knock it down with two lines," he tells the firefighters of Ladder Company 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower."

Not the first time a firefighter made the last mistake of his life. It's the nature of the job.

a little healthy skepticism is not a bad thing. especially when it comes to the government.

Not a bad thing at all. A shift key isn't a bad thing either.

Other than couldawouldashouldakindasortamighta, what exactly is anyone supposed to take as a lesson from all of this? Should we take from it that buildings built in radically different styles should suffer the same type of damage because they both share extraordinary height (and very little else) as a common factor? Should we take from it that buildings full of jet fuel burn the same as those that catch fire from an electrical short? Should we take from it that there is no reason to ask for an apples to apples comparison when an apples to kangaroos one will do?

 

[LAK]

Rich,

If you read the whole thing, it is clear that Manning and others in his field are not convinced by the official story at all:

Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the "official investigation" blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure.

"Half-baked farce". The greatest attack on U.S. soil in modern history, an abundance of hi-tech science in all applicable investigative areas - and they removed and or bulldozed all the evidence.

" ... far afield of full disclosure."?

Yep, and somewhat beyond "negligent" or "incompetent". In a simple murder case with one victim, even if a few witnesses said "I saw a man running away with a gun", and the responding cops and medics stripped the body, burned the clothing, brushed and mopped the sidewalk clean - and cremated the body - there would be more than accusations of "incompetence" too.

However, respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers. Rather, theory has it, the subsequent contents fires attacking the questionably fireproofed lightweight trusses and load-bearing columns directly caused the collapses in an alarmingly short time. Of course, in light of there being no real evidence thus far produced, this could remain just unexplored theory

Right, could be just unexplored theory, afterall, they are struggling to find an explanation for the near symetrical collapse of the two towers, even through the impact of the two aircraft were completely different. The fires never produced the heat to weaken the steel sufficiently; most of the fuel from one aircraft burned in a fireball outside one of the towers at the side. I have seen still photos of people standing in the holes of one of the towers a short time later. No smouldering clothing, no smoking hair, no desperate waving - just standing there leaning against something looking down like they were waiting for a bus.

Fire has never caused any large steel building to collapse - ever. EXCEPT three buildings bought by Larry Silverstein with a three and a half billion dollar policy that is; one of which was no where near the debris field. All the others buildings closer to the towers, like the Millenium Hilton, were relatively unscathed and are still there today.

I watched footage of the fall of WTC 7 from several viewpoints as it collapsed in classic controlled demolition fashion. It imploded without any damage to the buildings next to it. Even media stooge Dan Rather noticed and said almost exactly that as he narrated it live at the time. There was no visible sign of fire whatsoever as it went down in the center and from the bottom. It literally folded inwards from the sides as it went straight down from the bottom.

Photographs taken after it's collapse show it was constructed with enormous steel columns; the idea that a couple of moderate fires took it down is ridiculous. Just how desperate was the effort to avoid full disclosure, another lie was injected at some point; that a large portion of the building was damaged by one of the falling towers. Simply not true; try and find footage or a single photograph from any angle showing such damage while it was still standing. There isn't any.

 

[LAK]

What a coincidence theewy

Published on Tuesday, February 4, 2003 by the Prince George's Journal (Maryland)
Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the WTC, Dulles and United
by Margie Burns

George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family.

The security company, formerly named Securacom and now named Stratesec, is in Sterling, Va.. Its CEO, Barry McDaniel, said the company had a ``completion contract" to handle some of the security at the World Trade Center ``up to the day the buildings fell down."

It also had a three-year contract to maintain electronic security systems at Dulles Airport, according to a Dulles contracting official. Securacom/Stratesec also handled some security for United Airlines in the 1990s, according to McDaniel, but it had been completed before his arriving on the board in 1998.

McDaniel confirmed that the company has security contracts with the Department of Defense, including the U.S. Army, but did not detail the nature of the work, citing security concerns. It has an ongoing line with the General Services Administration - meaning that its bids for contracts are noncompetitive - and also did security work for the Los Alamos laboratory before 1998.

Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to fiscal year 2000. But the White House has not publicly disclosed Bush connections in any of its responses to 9/11, nor has it mentioned that another Bush-linked business had done security work for the facilities attacked.

Marvin Bush joined Securacom when it was capitalized by the Kuwait-American Corporation, a private investment firm in D.C. that was the security company's major investor, sometimes holding a controlling interest. Marvin Bush has not responded to telephone calls and e-mails for comment.

KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

The managing director at KuwAm, Wirt D. Walker III, was also a principal at Stratesec, and Walker, Marvin Bush and al Sabah are listed in SEC filings as significant shareholders in both companies during that period.

Marvin Bush's last year on the board at Stratesec coincided with his first year on the board of HCC Insurance, formerly Houston Casualty Co., one of the insurance carriers for the WTC. He left the HCC board in November 2002.

But none of these connections has been looked at during the extensive investigations since 9/11. McDaniel says principals and other personnel at Stratesec have not been questioned or debriefed by the FBI or other investigators. Walker declined to answer the same question regarding KuwAm, referring to the public record.

Walker is also chairman and CEO of Aviation General, a Tulsa, Okla.-based aviation company with two subsidiaries. SEC filings also show al Sabah as a principal and shareholder in Aviation General, which was recently delisted by the Nasdaq. Stratesec was delisted by the American Stock Exchange in October 2002.

The suite in which Marvin Bush was annually re-elected, according to public records, is located in the Watergate in space leased to the Saudi government. The company now holds shareholder meetings in space leased by the Kuwaiti government there. The White House has not responded to various requests for comment.

Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her ``Saudi money trail" bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.

Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush.

On the very day of the tragic space shuttle crash, the government appointed an independent investigative panel, and rightly so. Why didn't it do the same on Sept. 12, 2001?

Margie Burns, a teacher and writer, lives in Cheverly, Maryland.

 

[LAK]

Let's send today's award winner, Mr. Ryan, his foil hat ....

The collapse of the WTC
by Kevin Ryan
Underwriters Laboratories
Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

"[Mr. Gayle] .... The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse." The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core to "soften and buckle."

..... This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers."

http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2004-11-11-ryan.php

Right - alot of people have said the same thing. It doesn't add up.

See:
http://www.ul.com/about/otm/otmv10n4/wtc.html

But then try and find the report at:

http://wtc.nist.gov/

Try and find any material on the subject by these institutions

 

[novus collectus]

"Half-baked farce". The greatest attack on U.S. soil in modern history, an abundance of hi-tech science in all applicable investigative areas - and they removed and or bulldozed all the evidence.

Your posts are so long and I won't have time to read it untill this afternoon so I apoplogize. But, the first thing I saw was this and it seems that an historical incidence was completely ignored. Pear Harbor .

It seems that there were serious structural flaws in the Arizona when it sank and there are a thousand (IIRC) murdered Americans still on it to this day. They had to treat the incident almost the same as they had to treat the 9/11 attack (as per the current discussion and IMO). They removed the evidence of the superstructure and they let the engineering evidence of structural failures lay where they are, since. Pearl Harbor was the worst attack on American soil ever .

 

[novus collectus]

Photographs taken after it's collapse show it was constructed with enormous steel columns; the idea that a couple of moderate fires took it down is ridiculous. Just how desperate was the effort to avoid full disclosure, another lie was injected at some point; that a large portion of the building was damaged by one of the falling towers. Simply not true; try and find footage or a single photograph from any angle showing such damage while it was still standing. There isn't any.

I just read another thing and this is going to make me late.

Once again I will point out that I was a construction worker and one of the jobs I had for a few years was an iron worker . There have been building fires that HAVE melted steel beams thicher that the ones in the Twin Towers. I have seen whole sections of buildings collapse during construction that were more soundly made than the Twin Towers and it was because of a few dozen missing bolts combined with a stormy night.

The trusses that held the floors between the columns are not thick steel and they were a major feature for holding it up. The Twin Towers were built like a big tube with the strongest part on the oustide. It was like standing on an alumunimum can and having a friend poke the wall of the can and that is when the can crushes. If you have ever seen a truss, you would know that it is not a solid beam and is a bunch of thinner rods and and a few peices of angle. The trusses would have failed a whole lot quicker than the thick columns but the thick colunms now lost a major part of their support against outward forces from the trusses that melted.

500 degrees farenheight???? Sheees. Wood burns at 451 farenheght and that is without any other contributiong forces like the wind that would have been present at 900 feet. Not to mention that the jet fuel used in the planes can get up to thousands of degrees in many conditions and the plastics can burn hot, and the gasses produced from the decomposing products can reach high temperatures. Sheeeeesss, I am a layman and I know this crap. The people that claim they are experts are either blind, unknowledgible about their profession, trying to sell a book about the subject, or simple just don't want to believe that what happened is being too easily explained and ignored what should have been obvious to someone in their profession.

 

[novus collectus]

Sorry to post three times in a row, but I just realised something and think I just put 2 and 2 together. Prince George's Gazzette, conspiracy theory that is supported by half information that was picked and chosen to fit. LAK are you a Lyndon LaRouche supporter or did you just listen to the guy in front of the Motor Vehicles who spouted this stuff?

I spoke to one of those LaRouchites once and they swore up and down that the Oklahoma City bombing was completely purpetrated by the government. They based most of what they said on what some self procalimed expert (and a few others taken out of context) that the bomb was a shaped charge that required "special" training to fabricate. I told them that by just reading a few pages from my Anarchist Cookbook and a few pages from an encyclopedia, I could make a shaped charged bomb in my garage without "special" training. (You just use a couple pieces of metal plate and arrange it at angles to each other. Common knowledge to anyone who can read). (and no I will never make a bomb in this country and never intend to).

I swear that when I was talking to the Laroucheite, that I saw a tiny little piece of tin foil sticking out of his basebal cap. He got real purturbed when I started taking his picture too. I would have been polite and shook his hand when he first approached me, but he probably was afraid I would get a DNA sample from his hand.

I am not trying to goad you on LAK, but I took these LaRouchites serious for the first few seconds when I spoke to them and, until I found out that they were kooks and Lyndon LaRouch supporters, I gave them time to debate me. Of course when I found out that they would dismiss everything I say to refute their argument or everything that could point out that it could possibly refute it and that they wanted to believe that there was some kinda conspiracy, I walked away. I might do that here.

 

[oneeyeross]

I probably shouldn't..

I know the last post was almost two months ago, and I shouldn't resurrect this..but I can't help it.

Anyone who believes a conspiracy is involved:

Can we get an idea of just how many people are in this conspiracy? I mean, if demo charges were used to bring down the WTC so that insurance could be collected....who set the charges? How many tons of stuff were involved? How did they truck it to the site, drill the beams, put the charges in place and have it ready to detonate at just the right time?

This means that the hijackers are also a part of the plot. I mean, you can't be ready to implode your building if you don't have a plot in place to start the process.

I dunno....maybe it's just me. But, I find the number of people that would have to be involved staggering. And you know, in this country, it wouldn't be kept secret this long....

 

[shootinstudent]

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. LAK, that was truly an astounding list of NOTHING....let me summarize:

1. LAK doesn't see the evidence that the planes knocked out the tower (Not because it's not there. But because it wasn't sent registered mail to LAK's place.)

2. Bush had powerful friends connected to the WTC. (Shocking, considering the WTC's importance in US finances.)

3. Therefore, the WTC was demolished and the official story of 19 arab hijackers is false.

It's beautifully simple. I'm always in awe whenever someone comes up with an argument in which not a single premise is related to any other premise, and the conclusion is drawn out of thin air.

 

[LAK]

Novus Collectus,

Your arguements as you present them are directed at the wrong person. You should put forth your theories to people like Kevin Ryan, Bill Manning and his other un-named "respected members of the fire protection engineering community". Perhaps Paul Isaac of the NYFD would be impressed too.

You also disregard what is plainly evident from recorded (on film) facts.

There were no intense fires burning in the towers - and especially building 7. Look at the tower smoke plumes, which give a good indication of the lack of any strong wind. There is recorded - on film - at least one person standing next to these "intense fires" in one of the holes left by one of the planes not that long after. No smouldering cloths, burning hair, and screams from "all the heat". Rather, like someone patiently waiting for a bus.

People jumped from the upper floors as the fires spread to higher floors and trapped them there - but there was far more smoke than flame - low temperature fire. And it was posssibly choking smoke and fumes that caused many of those people who jumped to do so than heat.

These fires did not burn with even a fraction of the intensity of the fire that razed through the Windsor building in Madrid - white hot at times - for more than a day and a half. There were very few collapsed portions in that building, and only moderate distortion of the majority of steel structure.

You are incorrect; the inner core was steel column - and the weight bearing part of the structure. The outer columns were primarily for rigidity against high wind pressure - and poking a hole through one side, even two, would not have affected it's ability to bear the weight of the upper floors. They were designed and built to take TWO hits by large passenger aircraft such as the 707 with ease. They were over-engineered.

As it was, one plane struck one 208ft wide tower almost squarely (a major feat of flying in itself) - and the other at an angle nearer the right corner with the majority of fuel burning in a fireball outside on the side of the building. Distinctly asymmetrical strike, "fire" and damage: yet this tower collapsed before the other, and with almost identical symmetry. Try duplicating that one in any test structures of similar proportions made of any material.

Right - even a layman knows better.

Even if both towers had demolition charges set to destroy the weight-bearing cores at the same floors - the core beneath would have offered sufficient resistance to the falling sections to cause them some deflection. The upper sections of both towers not only came down in almost symmetrical fashion - they fell with very little if any resistance.

-----------------------------------
"I am not a metallurgist"
- Dr. W. Gene Corley, FEMA Engineering Assessment Team, WTC attack.

 

[LAK]

Novus Collectus,

I couldn't give a dam about the LaRouche crowd; they are what is commonly known as mock opposition. They mix truth and half truth. They are a political red herring and agent provocateurs.

But as you bring up the Murrah building - it is funny that all these years later the dozen security tapes of the "lone McVeigh" are still locked away as "a matter of national security". I mean, McVeigh is long DEAD. What was the big secret then? What's the big secret now George?

On a technical level, General Benton Partin is as qualified as anyone to say that the damage to the Alfred P. Murrah building was inconsistant with a low-explosive amateur fertilizer concoction in a truck parked a known distance away from the building. Of course that wouldn't agree with Dr. W. Gene I-am-not-a-metallurgist Corley; who just so happens to have been involved in the "engineering assessment" of the Murrah building destruction as well.

But while you're fashioning some trendy headgear for Gen. Partin, take a gander at these photos of one of Slobodan Milosevic's residences in rural Serbia that was struck by a few of our SMART bombs filled with some real high grade explosives - that exploded inside. Amazing! It didn't "collapse".

Compare Milo's old country home with the hardened steel reinforced concrete column structure of the Murrah.

Yes, even a layman knows better.

 

[LAK]

Ah, that recording and playback device is back and running again ....

1. An audio-visual recording and playback device is incapable of rational and logical thought and has a limited memory - it only sees two planes flying into buildings and two buildings collapsing. And hence when you press PLAY - that is all that comes out. Over and over again.

Planes hit buildings, buildings fall down. Planes hit buildings, buildings fall down .. etc etc etc. Until you hit the STOP button.

2. Now if Martha Stewart had only conducted her alleged improprietry in American or United Airline stocks in the days right before the towers went down - like some other as yet un-named or indicted parties did - she'd not even gone to trial!. No one would have been the wiser! How could she had been so foolish as to take such a silly risk over a few thousand dollars worth of investment which was guaranteed to get the whole world's attention? Evidently she wasn't getting good advice.

But an audio-visual recording device is incapable of recognizing such an anomaly.

3. According to American Airlines and United Airlines - the 19 Arabs weren't on the planes. Their names do not appear on the passenger lists, and some were never sold tickets. Interesting; I am trying to picture the AA and UA check-in counter staff when these guys showed up. Maybe these super-Arabs mesmerized them - so that the airline staff simply checked them in, but actually processing them completely slipped their minds. Their eyes just glazed over - every one of them from check-in to actual boarding.

And these Arabs were afterall superior beings; while they couldn't fly or navigate single-engine props - they had no trouble flying things like 757's with precision and performed amazing flying stunts with them.

We've been given a few glimpses of the alleged hijackers getting frisked somewhere; I wonder why we haven't seen more footage of them at the check-in process etc? I mean airports have cameras all over the place ... Ah, wait, I know .... it's "a matter of national security" that we don't see extended footage of 19 dead hijackers.

Then there's Attaboy's super-passport; able to withstand the impact and compression at about 550 knots at the front of a 757 as it is driven into a steel building with the rest of plane, people and payload squashed over it - and heated with burning kerosene - I mean jet fuel burning hot enough to bend steel!

... And wind up pristine on the street a few blocks away.

No, an audio-visual recording device doesn't know any better. But yes, even a layman does.

It's beautifully simple. I'm always in awe whenever someone comes up with an argument in which not a single premise is related to any other premise, and the conclusion is drawn out of thin air.

Now this recording is not unexplainable either.

An audio-visual recording device can only playback what is put in ....

Planes hit buildings, buildings fall down. Plane not hit building 7.... building 7 still fall down.

What did the machine record that the fate of WTC 6 was?

 

[novus collectus]

LAK,
First let me a apologise for comparing you to LaRoucheies.

I do not have time at the moment to answer in toto at the moment. But you should know that in tall buildings like that (and almost every building larger than I guess five or so floors) just about every part of the structure (except for cosmetic aspects) contribute to the support. One of the major designs they built into the building (and this is what the origional egineers said back in the seventies) is that it was designed as a tube structure with most of the outer wall being a big part of the support. This is how they were able to make large spacious floors without having a column every 40 or so feet like you see in some buildings. This allowed them to reach such a high height because it saved them bearing weight as well. The trusses (that I am so familliar with and I helped install a few hundred) help to hold the walls in place by helping them resist the outward forces (not an engineer but this is easy for me to understand). The trusses are such a design that if you break one of the cross pieces you lose half (or a high percentage like half) of its structural integrity. The majority of the trusses that are damaged by fire and impact on one end would fail on both ends.

Yes the building may have been engineered to take a hit from a jet liner, but they were making that calculation on the untested and unforseen scenario where the blast would blow away the fireproofing that would have protected it. (I also know of this itchy, anoying fireproofing because I have had to knock it out of the way to weld beams and I tell you that it is just like papaer mache)

 

[novus collectus]

ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) is about as powerful as 70%-90% dynamite. He used ammonium nitrate and nitromethane in Oklahome city which is even more powerful than ANFO. He did not use garden variety fertilizer, he used the pure product that farmers add to their fertilizer. IIRC he had about a ton or two in the truck. That is the same as having a ton or two of C2 explosives (which is the explosive used in C4 plastic). If a buzz bomb in WWII that had a ton of trinitrophenol (IIRC or it was TNT) could destroy half a block, then why couldnt two tons of dynamite equivalent destroy the front of a building? Besides the building was not properly constructed anyway because they did not tie in the front (spandriel?) beam that supported the front of the building to the columns properly. They did not connect the iron reinforcing rods within the concrete to it's columns.

As for the fire, I tell you one thing LAK you are making me question (though definitley not change my perception) the validity of the fire claims and I wil have to go back and look at the footage. But I will guess for right now that it was a matter of perception and scale and the smoke did not appear to be affected by the wind because, even though it may have been blow hundreds of feet, it would only look like it was blow less than a fraction of that from a distance with a large object for the eye to scale it to.

As far as the wind, ever been even a few hundred feet up unprotected? Even on what would seem like a calm day on the ground, you would get, at the very least, a constant breeze. Now imagine a sky scraper 800-1000 feet up with thermals and with the sun out mixing up the air in a city that has plenty of objects to radiate the heat to the air.

As far as the fire being smaller than the other ones you mentioned (that I have not personally seen yet), were they on somewhat cloudy days? I will bet that if the attack occrured at night, even the hot smoke would have been somwhat luminescent or glowing. There was also, in such a large and wide building, plenty of places for the fire to have been fed with air and for the smoke to have gone without us seeing it on film taken from a mile away. The ductwork would have fed the fire and the stairwells too, not to mention the venturi effect of the strong wind, stiff breeze or mild/strong thermals that would have made parts of those floors a blast furnace for at least a few (if not most) of the burning floors.

Building seven. It was not a new building IIRC and it had not been built to withstand an earthquake. When the trade center collapsed it would have traumatized anything near it and it would have been just luck or a fluke if there were building around it that were not damaged to some major degree. To ignore the physics that could have damaged building seven or even the trade center and to follow the people who jump to conclusions is not good IMO because although we do not need to blindly follow what the government says and we should question what they do, many of these people are perpetrating harm with their "theories" and have gone too far and have started using bits and pieces that do not fit together to justify their "intuition".