The Fires in Building 7

The Fires in Building 7

Building 7 had a number of fires of limited extent and unknown duration before its precipitous total collapse at 5:20 PM. Official reports assume that debris from the fall of the North Tower ignited fires at 10:29 AM.

WTC 7 fires on east face
This photograph from FEMA’s report, and others like it, appear to be the only evidence of emergent flames.

Photographs of the building’s north face show only small, barely visible fires. Photographs of the building’s east face, apparently from the mid-afternoon, show flames emerging from an isolated section of the 11th floor. Photographs of the building’s west face, apparently from the late afternoon, show several areas with smoke stains, but don’t show any flames. There appear to be no photographs of Building 7 from a time shortly before its collapse that show large active fires. The photograph below, taken in the afternoon, shows the upper half of Building 7 from the south. There are no signs of fire.

FEMA’s report blamed the collapse of Building 7 primarily on fires, though it was inconclusive. NIST’s investigation placed much more weight on claims of severe structural damage to the building. Nonetheless, all theories of the collapse that exclude demolition are necessarily primarily fire theories, since the building collapsed almost seven hours after incurring any structural damage from North Tower fallout. It is thus striking that other skyscraper fires exhibited fires that were far more extensive and long-lasting that Building 7’s, but none of these other buildings collapsed.

south facade

Despite the fact that the fires in Building 7 were relatively small and short-lasting compared to other office fires, a decision was made not to fight them. Chapter 5 of FEMA’s Report implies that lack of water was the basis for this decision:It appeared that water on site was limited due to a 20-inch broken water main in Vesey Street. Although WTC 7 was sprinklered, it did not appear that there would have been a sufficient quantity of water to control the growth and spread of the fires on multiple floors. In addition, the firefighters made the decision fairly early on not to attempt to fight the fires, due in part to the damage to WTC 7 from the collapsing towers. Hence, the fire progressed throughout the day fairly unimpeded by automatic or manual suppression activities.

This explanation is highly dubious given that Building 7 was only about two blocks from the Hudson.

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What Was In Building 7?

What Was In Building 7?

Building 7 was one of New York City’s larger buildings. A sleek bronze-colored skyscraper with a trapezoidal footprint, it occupied an entire city block and rose over 600 feet above street level.

Built in 1985, it was formerly the headquarters of the junk-bond firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, which contributed to the Savings and Loans collapse, prompting the $500-billion taxpayer-underwritten bailout of the latter 1980s.

At the time of its destruction, it exclusively housed government agencies and financial institutions. It contained offices of the IRS, Secret Service, and SEC.

Tenant
Square Feet
Floor
Industry

Salomon Smith Barney
1,202,900
GRND,1-6,13,18-46
Financial Institution

IRS Regional Council
90,430
24, 25
Government

U.S. Secret Service
85,343
9,10
Government

C.I.A.
N/A
N/A
Government

American Express Bank International
106,117
7,8,13
Financial Institution

Standard Chartered Bank
111,398
10,13,26,27
Financial Institution

Provident Financial Management
9,000
7,13
Financial Institution

ITT Hartford Insurance Group
122,590
19-21
[Insurance]

First State Management Group, Inc
4,000
21
Insurance

Federal Home Loan Bank
47,490
22
Financial Institution

NAIC Securities
22,500
19
Insurance

Securities & Exchange Commission
106,117
11,12,13
Government

Mayor’s Office of Emergency Mgmt
45,815
23
Government

This list is based on a table published by CNN.com, which did not include CIA, whose tenancy was disclosed after the attack in the New York Times article1  
One of the most interesting tenants was then-Mayor Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management, and its emergency command center on the 23rd floor.

This floor received 15 million dollars worth of renovations, including independent and secure air and water supplies, and bullet and bomb resistant windows designed to withstand 200 MPH winds. 2   The 1993 bombing must have been part of the rationale for the command center, which overlooked the Twin Towers, a prime terrorist target.

How curious that on the day of the attack, Guiliani and his entourage set up shop in a different headquarters, abandoning the special bunker designed precisely for such an event. 3  

References

1. 
List of World Trade Center tenants, CNN.com,
2. 
Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism, Gotham Gazette, 9/12/01
3. 
Giuliani Improvises After Command Center Gets Hit, Washington Technology, 10/08/01 [cached]






1. List of World Trade Center tenants, CNN.com,
2. Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism, Gotham Gazette, 9/12/01
3. Giuliani Improvises After Command Center Gets Hit, Washington Technology, 10/08/01 [cached]
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Building 7’s Rubble Pile

Building 7’s Rubble Pile

Less than seven seconds after Building 7 began to implode, all that was left of the steel skyscraper was a rubble pile. The rubble pile is notable for several features:

WTC 7 rubble pile

its location – It was centered around the vertical axis of the former building.
its size – The pile from the 47-story building was less than four stories high.
its tidiness – The pile was almost entirely within the footprint of the former building

What does the shape of the rubble pile indicate about the events leading to the collapse of building 7?

Consider the rubble piles produced by other collapses. The only examples of total collapses of steel frame highrises (excepting WTC 1, 2, and 7) involved either severe earthquakes or controlled demolition.
Total collapses due to earthquakes are extremely rare. The rubble piles of the few documented cases had none of the above features. 1  
Total collapses due to controlled demolition generally have all of the above features. In fact, to achieve such a small, consolidated rubble pile is one of the main objectives of a controlled demolition.


References

1. Other Building Collapses, 9-11 Research,

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Fires Versus Steel Buildings

Fires Versus Steel Buildings

The official explanation that fires caused the collapse of Building 7 is incredible in light of the fact that fires have never caused a steel-framed building to totally collapse, before or after September 11th, 2001.

Steel-framed high-rises (buildings of fifteen stories or more) have been common for more than 100 years. There have been hundreds of incidents involving severe fires in such buildings, and none have led to complete collapse, or even partial collapse of support columns.

view of fire in First Interstate Building in Los Angeles
The Interstate Bank Building fire consumed several floors but did not damage the steel superstructure.

Recent examples of high-rise fires include the 1991 One Meridian Plaza fire in Philadelphia, which raged for 18 hours and gutted 8 floors of the 38-floor building; 1   and the 1988 First Interstate Bank Building fire in Los Angeles, which burned out of control for 3-1/2 hours and gutted 4 floors of the 64 floor tower. Both of these fires were far more severe than any fires seen in Building 7, but those buildings did not collapse. The Los Angeles fire was described as producing “no damage to the main structural members”2  

Research indicates that even if a steel-framed building were subjected to an impossible superfire, hundreds of degrees hotter and far more extensive then any fire ever observed in a real building, it would still not collapse. Appendix A of The World Trade Center Building Performance Study contains the following:In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel-framed buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 800-900 C (1,500-1,700 F) in three of the tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 C (1,100 F), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments).

In building fires outside of such laboratory experiments, steel beams and columns probably never exceed 500º C. In extensive fire tests of steel frame carparks conducted by Corus Construction in several countries, measured temperatures of the steel columns and beams, including in uninsulated structures, never exceeded 360ºC. 3  


References

1. One Meridien Plaza, SGH.com[cached]
2. Interstate Bank Building Fire Los Angeles, California (May 4, 1988), iklimnet.com[cached]
3. Fire Resistance of Steel Framed Car Parks, corusconstruction.com[cached]

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The Silence Surrounding Building 7

The Silence Surrounding Building 7

The American public was treated to wall-to-wall television coverage of the September 11th attack throughout the day and for nearly the entire following week. Yet most Americans remember only two skyscrapers collapsing in Lower Manhattan on the day of the attack: the Twin Towers. The total collapse of the third huge skyscraper late in the afternoon of September 11th was reported as if it were an insignificant footnote. The television networks played video of the jets impacting the Twin Towers hundreds of times. But most people never saw video of Building 7’s collapse.

Building 7 was neither hit by an airplane nor, apparently, by heavy fallout from the collapse of either of the Twin Towers. If you believe the official story that it collapsed from fires, it would be the first case in history in which fires induced the total collapse of a steel-framed building. Shouldn’t that have been newsworthy, given its implications for building safety and rescue and firefighting operations? Incredibly, it is difficult to find any mention of Building 7 in newspapers, magazines, or broadcast media reports about the September 11th attack.

The collapse of Building 7 was reported on 9/11/2001, apparently by all or most of the television networks. These reports were so obscure that it was not until 2007 that researchers discovered that the BBC and CNN had announced the collapse before it occurred.

Despite the enormity of this event, there is no mention of it in a timetable of press flashes, alerts, and bulletins from the day of and after the attack compiled by the Associated Press1  

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WTC7.net

WTC7.net

WTC7.net was created by Jim Hoffman to address the suspicious silence surrounding the total collapse of the 47 story skyscraper known as WTC 7, or Building 7. Except for reports of the collapse on the day of the attack, most conspicuously lacking footage, mention of Building 7 has been essentially non-existent in the mainstream and even alternative press.

The accepted cause of the total collapse of this building is fires. Since fires have never before caused the collapse of a steel-framed building, it has been standard procedure for first responders to enter burning high-rises without hesitation to save people and property. Will this now change in light of presumption that fires leveled Building 7? Thousands of lives will depend on the answer to this question. Given that, the rapid destruction of the evidence that could have resolved the causes underlying the mysterious collapse of Building 7 is appalling.

We hope WTC7.net will help people to understand what really destroyed Building 7. Did fires really reduce this skyscraper, capable of withstanding hurricanes, to a tidy pile of rubble; or is there more to this story than we’ve been told?

Building 7 was the third skyscraper to be reduced to rubble on September 11, 2001. According to the government, fires, primarily, leveled this building, but fires have never before or since destroyed a steel skyscraper.The team that investigated the collapse were kept away from the crime scene. By the time they published their inconclusive report in May, 2002, the evidence had been destroyed.Why did the government rapidly recycle the steel from the largest and most mysterious engineering failure in world history, and why has the media remained silent?
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911TRUTH.ORG

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 9/11 TRUTH MOVEMENT AND 911TRUTH.ORG

The 9/11 truth movement evolved alongside the families’ movement. By the time of the second anniversary, in September 2003, the 9/11 skeptics network was able to draw thousands of participants to research conferences in New York City, Berlin, London, Toronto, the Bay Area, Durham NH, and other cities. March 2004 saw the “Citizens’ Inquiry into 9-11: Phase One” at the historic Herbst Theater in San Francisco (where the UN Charter was signed). Researchers and dissidents from many cities and countries flocked to the movement’s first great summit, achieving the first breakthroughs in the US mainstream media. The 9/11 truth movement entered American politics as a growing presence.

On the final days of the San Francisco conference, veterans of the previous two years of actions and energetic newcomers came together to contemplate how to:

  • boost the resources available for 9/11 truth activism;
  • sharpen the message and coordinate actions;
  • conduct a national campaign for 9/11 truth, keeping in mind that full disclosure is likely to trigger enormous global transformations.

These meetings resolved to create a formal organization to serve these ends. As a result, 911Truth.org was launched in June 2004. (The web site at https://911truth.org had already served the movement as a switchboard and events calendar under the name of “9/11 Truth Alliance.” That name is still shared by certain local activist groups, as in the Bay Area.)

Under its first executive director David Kubiak and current executive director Janice Matthews, 911Truth.org has been ahead of major developments, breaking exclusives, promoting the best in research and action, and orchestrating coups like the Zogby 9/11 poll of August 2004, which found that a majority of New York City residents believe government leaders were in some way complicit in 9/11 and a national Zogby poll in May 2006, which found that 45% of voting age Americans think “Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success”. A 2007 Zogby Poll found that 51% of Americans support a new investigation.

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Scientists for 9/11 Truth

Scientists for 9/11 Truth is a group of scientific professionals who are calling for new, independent, and scientific investigations of the events of September 11, 2001.

Organizing Committee:

David S. Chandler, BS Physics, Harvey Mudd College, MS Mathematics, California Polytechnic University

Jonathan Cole, P.E., Bachelor of Science Civil Engineering, University of Connecticut

Steven E. Jones, PhD Physics, Vanderbilt University

Guthrie Miller, PhD Physics, Stanford University

John D. Wyndham, PhD Physics, Cambridge University

Coordinator:

David S. Chandler, BS Physics, Harvey Mudd College, MS Mathematics, California Polytechnic University

Purpose:

Our specific purpose is to collect, study, analyze, report on, and disseminate scientifically factual information and data on the events that took place on September 11, 2001 (9/11), and issues related to these events; to solicit public support for new, independent and scientific investigations of the events of 9/11; and to present, for scientific, educational, and civic purposes, a unified front of professional scientists who stand behind the emerging science of 9/11.

As scientists, we are committed to upholding the scientific method developed painstakingly over the past centuries, sometimes at great cost to personal reputation, circumstance, and freedom, and even to life itself.

Considering the tremendous impact, on decisions to go to war, of the official account of 9/11, and the many thousands of lives snuffed out by these wars and on 9/11 itself and thereafter, it behooves us, as representatives of the scientific tradition, to uphold that tradition with truth and honor by exposing the absurdity of the official story of 9/11 as seen from a scientific perspective.

It is probable that many of you, for reasons of time, political outlook, and personal inclination, or a desire not to question the government, have not yet closely examined the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001. To you and all those who seek a rational world through reason and truth-telling, we offer these pages.

Introduction to the Science of 9/11

This introduction describes the official story, in the case of the World Trade Center as researched by NIST, and contrasts it with the scientific findings of independent researchers.

Foreword

The South Tower (WTC2) destruction looks like a violent explosion.

To read the newspapers or listen to the radio, one would think that questions about the official account of events of September 11, 2001 come only from a fringe group. But this is an illusion, consciously propagated, we believe, by government agents and their mouthpieces in the mainstream press. In a series of public opinion polls, roughly half of Americans were shown to doubt that the government is telling us the truth about 9/11, and the numbers are growing each year.

The truth is that among independent scientists with no axe to grind, a large proportion of those who look into the 9/11 evidence find grounds for doubt. A few have put their reputations and careers at risk in order to speak out about that evidence, and what they see. In 2010, larger numbers of scientists have joined together and contributed their expertise to create this web site.

It doesn’t take a PhD to understand that the official account of the 9/11 attacks contains contradictions and physical impossibilities. One of the strongest reasons for doubting the official version is common sense. Still, sometimes our common sense can fool us, and, especially where such serious charges are being levelled, it is wise to consult scientific expertise as well.

One good place to begin is this video of the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC1). Does it look like a building collapsing under its own weight? Or does it look like a descending series of explosions, progressing at about the same rate as the falling debris? Jet planes are fueled with kerosene, which is not a high explosive and cannot sever steel or pulverize concrete.

Scientists for 9/11 Truth asks you to read and consider the evidence we present here. We ask you to present the arguments to an independent scientist of your acquaintance, someone whom you know and trust. Write back to us, please! Tell us what you think, and what you have heard from scientists whom you personally know and trust.

A word about “conspiracy theories”. This term has been used to dismiss questions about 9/11, and to suggest that they are unworthy of serious debate. Professor Charles Pidgen has written: “[T]o call someone “a conspiracy theorist” is to suggest that he is irrational, paranoid or perverse. Often the suggestion seems to be that conspiracy theories are not just suspect, but utterly unbelievable, too silly to deserve the effort of a serious refutation. It is a common ploy on the part of politicians to dismiss critical allegations by describing them as conspiracy theories.” (See “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom Revisited” from the Selected Publications of Charles Pigden, Otago University.)

But in the case of 9/11, there are hundreds of insiders who have come out to tell their piece of the story, sometimes at great personal cost. Some of these are police, firefighters, and first–responders. Some are 9/11 survivors, and the family members of those who died in the Twin Towers.

Both chairmen of the official 9/11 Commission have written to warn us that key questions were not answered in the 9/11 hearings, that they were not allowed to question witnesses, and that their conclusions were tainted. Much of the testimony by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of master-minding 9/11, was obtained through torture. The Commission was a governmental body whose chairman, Thomas Kean, was appointed by President George W. Bush; the other members were appointed by Congress; and the executive director, Philip Zelikow, was essentially a member of the Bush White House. Former New York Times writer Philip Shenon points out in his book, “The Commission,” that Zelikow had secretly written a detailed outline of the Commission’s report before his research staff had even begun its work.

The encylopedic evidence that refutes the official account of the events of September 11th is freely available in photos, videos, and government reports. Scientists for 9/11 Truth presents some of this evidence on its website, and is calling for an open debate.

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911SpeakOut

911SpeakOut.org

This web site documents the work on the scientific understanding of the events of 9/11 by several independent researchers: David Chandler (retired physics teacher), Jonathan Cole (professional engineer), Wayne Coste (electrical engineer), Frank Legge (PhD chemist), and Nathan Flach (video archivist). We are all independent 9/11 researchers, and affiliated with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and/or Scientists for 9/11 Truth. Our goal has been to uncover the truth and shed some light on the events of 9/11, each in our own way.

We are collaborating on this web site because we feel the work done by each of us complements the work of each of the others. Collections of our work (and more) are accessible through the menu tabs in the page header.

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Journal of 9/11 Studies

gulnarasamoilovadocumentaryphotographernewyorkcityworldtradecenterterroristattacksseptember112001031

Photograph by Gulnara Samoilova

The Journal of 9/11 Studies is a peer-reviewed, electronic-only journal covering research related to the events of September 11, 2001. Many fields of study are represented and all content is freely available online.

Since 2006, the Journal has presented some of the most compelling analysis and evidence related to the crimes of September 11, 2001. Today our mission is to offer new findings and new, evidence-based perspectives that have not yet been addressed. We hope you find the content informative and useful in the fight for truth, justice and peace.

To learn about the editors or get contact and submission information, see the About section in the menu above.

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