Fully-Involved Fire Does NOT Cause WTC Complex Building to Collapse

Originally posted by bsbray11
Has anyone ever compared what a torch-cut column looks like versus what a thermite-cut column looks like?

Just curious. If they look the same then you're all reaching erroneous conclusions and have no idea.

It would be similar, but the thermite-cut column would be MUCH slaggier. It would be covered in slag like one of those drip candles, actually.

Besides which, they'd need a ridiculous amount of thermite to get it to cut sideways through the column, and it would be a huge, sloppy, obvious mess with slag steel everywhere. It would be obvious to EVERYONE. (Not like the cutting torch pictures that have been posted.) Not to mention, you'd need some sort of small charge to set off the explosive as well.

So, basically, you'd have to have some sort of crack team of magical ninjas that could pack huge amounts of thermites, and explosives, around all these columns, without messing up the walls, in a building where 100,000 go through the lobby everyday, and NOT BE NOTICED.

There was no thermite. There was no explosives.

does it disprove thermite?
I know that willy pete grenades (white phosphorus) can burn through the armor of a tank and leave a pool of molten metal.
Why limit the thinking to conventional explosives, why not some mix of conventional/unconventional?
Its not like it had to be a neat demolition, the building just needed to come down.

Originally posted by 11Bravo
does it disprove thermite?

No, but other reasons do.

Thermite will burn like hell, like you said. But it doesn't burn through stuff horizontally without some assistance and large amounts. They would've had to sneak large amounts of this stuff in, install some kind of device around the columns to get the stuff to burn that way, and then add an additional charge or device to ignite the thermite (thermite won't catch fire from a match).

It's ludicrous to think they were able to do all that without tearing up the walls or anybody noticing. Not to mention, as I said, there'd be slag everywhere for people to see.

And, thermite doesn't always burn at the same rate. There would be tons of unburned thermite found all over the place.

Originally posted by 11Bravo
does it disprove thermite?
I know that willy pete grenades (white phosphorus) can burn through the armor of a tank and leave a pool of molten metal.
Why limit the thinking to conventional explosives, why not some mix of conventional/unconventional?
Its not like it had to be a neat demolition, the building just needed to come down.

WP will burn through armor, but, its also pretty obvious when it does. we'd probably have seen the entire floors of the wtc burst into flames all the way down, no? (and i know wp doesnt really give off a 'flame' so much but it would heat everything else in the area to a temp it would burn)

and no, it didnt hve to be neat, but it did have to be covert so that it looked natural, and thats where the whole 'controlled demo' has ALWAYS fallen apart for me. you know as well as i do that you cant set off over about 10lbs of HE without everyone in a 3K radius knownig exactly what it is. hell, even a standard hand grenade will rattle your fillings at less than a klik so therse just no way ill buy that there was enough demo on enough floors to cut through all those columns and no one noticed...

sorry, it just doesnt work for me.

but for what its worth...id buy into a WP scenario before i would buy into thermite.

thats just me though

Damocles, check out that link I provided.
They talk about a version of WP that reacts to air.
Its something Im not familier with but it sounds like some of this stuff just ignites when oxygen is present, and I dont think there would be a big explosion involved with that.
Also I have used a willy pete or two, and they dont have a bang that I recall ever hearing.

exactly 11b, is why of all of the theories id buy into wp before thermite or he or any of that.

wp by nature reacts to air and the only pop from wp grenade is the blasting cap spreading it around. they also use wp for the dragons breath 12g loads the secret service uses, its good stuff

kind of glad you brought it up actually.

and thats kind of the point i was trying to make, (and seemed to fail, apologies) is that it doesnt burn with an open flame but does get hot, which could ignite everythign else around it that would burn, and in an office there are lots of those things. desks chairs paper etc so i would have kind of expected to see flames burst out on other floors, unless they went off RIGHT at the moment of collapse and simply didnt have time to transfer the heat to the things around them.

IF i was going to buy into a CD theory, id look at wp before i did thermite or HE but thats just me.

the problem i see with it is that unless it was all consumed when it was ignighted, it would be banked under the debris wihtout O2 to react with and when they dug it up would flare up again and someone would have noticed that.

its not exactly a covert agent by any means.

Originally posted by Damocles
the problem i see with it is that unless it was all consumed when it was ignighted, it would be banked under the debris wihtout O2 to react with and when they dug it up would flare up again and someone would have noticed that.

According to some, there was plenty of O2 in the debris pile. How else would the "fires" be able to melt the metal and have the temps so high in the footprint basements? Fire needs oxygen also.

apreciated, however, have you ever built a campfire and then banked your coals? the coals will smolder and stay hot overnight and the next night its a cinch to restart yoru fire.

used to work at a summer camp and one day we dug out the firepit and 2 feet down there were hot coals.

same thing.

the hotspots under the debris werent active fires they were essentially banked coals, just not burning wood but hot materials that were insulated from the outside temps and stayed hot.

the real question is this:what got them hot enough to have the heat to be insulated that long.

it was NOT c4.

Originally posted by whiterabbit

Originally posted by bsbray11
Has anyone ever compared what a torch-cut column looks like versus what a thermite-cut column looks like?

Just curious. If they look the same then you're all reaching erroneous conclusions and have no idea.

It would be similar, but the thermite-cut column would be MUCH slaggier. It would be covered in slag like one of those drip candles, actually.

.

additionally, there wouldnt be any torch grooves in a column burned by thermite. thats the real give away on those pics everyone posts. you can actually see where the torch tip burned into the steel then moved forward, paused etc. thermite would/should give a much cleaner line.

Originally posted by Damocles
additionally, there wouldnt be any torch grooves in a column burned by thermite. thats the real give away on those pics everyone posts. you can actually see where the torch tip burned into the steel then moved forward, paused etc. thermite would/should give a much cleaner line.

You are correct.

And what causes those grooves, is when you're using a cutting torch, it actually blows the melted metal out. It's not like a laser beam or something. It just heats it up with a flame until it's molten and then it gets blown out by a blast of oxygen. It leaves a little round groove where the melted metal gets blown out.

Originally posted by Damocles
used to work at a summer camp and one day we dug out the firepit and 2 feet down there were hot coals.

I've done the same. Even down to working at a summer camp. But, that is to cook and it is also getting cooler from the start. The fires in the trade center would have had to get hotter to see those kinds of temperatures. So, it's not the same thing.

the hotspots under the debris werent active fires they were essentially banked coals, just not burning wood but hot materials that were insulated from the outside temps and stayed hot.

Staying hot and actually increasing in temperature are 2 different things.

the real question is this:what got them hot enough to have the heat to be insulated that long.

it was NOT c4.

Exactly. It had to be something though.

i was unaware that they had recorded the temps increasing.

i was speculating that "if" something like thermite or wp were used to cut the beams, they would have fallen into a pile of rubble while still hot and had the heat insulated against cooling for some time.

wasnt aware they increased in temp. that is interesting to me. and again goes against the use of HE cuz well, he wouldnt/couldnt do that.

Originally posted by Damocles
i was unaware that they had recorded the temps increasing.

i was speculating that "if" something like thermite or wp were used to cut the beams, they would have fallen into a pile of rubble while still hot and had the heat insulated against cooling for some time.

wasnt aware they increased in temp. that is interesting to me. and again goes against the use of HE cuz well, he wouldnt/couldnt do that.

I'm not sure if they increased in the pile but I'm just going by a fire's temp. and what they recorded at the site. I think you and I are on the same page about the thermite or wp getting insulated. My bad for taking it the wrong way.

NASA recorded temps into 1300 degree range in the debris pile for days afterwards when the overflew the WTC with the AVRIS system.