What started the fires in 7?

Everybody seems to argue over whether or not fire caused 7 to fall. But what I would like to know is how the fires began in the first place. The offical reason is the fires were from falling wtc1 but when I look at videos of the fires in 7 the floors where the external damage is and the floors where the fires are at are different.
Here's a video on building 7
disclose.tv...
Pause it at 01:00 and you see the fires with no external damage near it at all other than all the windows blown out.

Check these videos from fire photographer Steve Spak of WTC 7

www.911myths.com...

If you look at video 9. 10, and 11 can see fires burning out the windows
on north side of WTC 7. Also can see windows failing from heat

In a condition know as "AUTOEXPOSURE" (exposure being a fire fighting
term for objects in path of fire) the heat from the fires on lower floors
will crack windows above it allowing flame/sparks to enter and kindle
new fires. A fire can Autoexpose when heat cuases floor truss to sag
cracking the floor decking above it and allowing heat to penetrate and start
new fires. The carpeting provides good fuel for this to happen

Most well known occurance was that of Meridian Plaza in
Philadelphia - fire started on 22th floor and proceeded to 30th floor
where it was extinguished by sprinkler system on that floor. Sprinklers
in WTC 7 were disabled when towers fell and crushed water mains supplying building

reply to post by thedman


Thank you for the link. But what I'm trying to find is where the fires originated from on the lower floors. I see the damage on the upper floors and I see heavy damage in photos/videos in surrounding buildings, I just can't find the external damage of the lower floors in 7.

NIST never provided an adequate explanation for why the fires started in 7. They received some negative comments regarding this by general members of the public.

Your guess for why the fires started is as good (bad?) as NIST's!

Originally posted by tezzajw
NIST never provided an adequate explanation for why the fires started in 7. They received some negative comments regarding this by general members of the public.

Your guess for why the fires started is as good (bad?) as NIST's!

Unfortunately for your conspiracy scenarios, you are wrong. NIST did release a report documenting the collapse of WTC 7 last August. . .

The final report describes how debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7 at the western half of the south face. Fires on Floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 burned out of control, because the water supply to the automatic sprinkler system had failed. The primary and backup water supply to the sprinkler systems for the lower floors relied on the city's water supply. Those water lines were damaged by the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. These uncontrolled fires in WTC 7 eventually spread to the northeast part of the building, where the collapse began.

After 7 hours of uncontrolled fires, a steel girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to one of the 81 columns supporting the building. Floor 13 collapsed, beginning a cascade of floor failures to Floor 5. Column 79, no longer supported by a girder, buckled, triggering a rapid succession of structural failures that moved from east to west. All 23 central columns, followed by the exterior columns, failed in what's known as a "progressive collapse"—that is, local damage that spreads from one structural element to another, eventually resulting in the collapse of the entire structure.

The supposed "negative comments" were based solely upon the posters belief in their conspiracies being more of a matter of faith, than it is fact, and thus offered nothing that discredited anything that the report stated.

reply to post by GoodOlDave

The Nist report is a lie, and does not stand up to real science. However you can believe in a fairy tail if you like, however I choose not to.
I take this witness very seriously Barry Jennings, he was in the WTC 7 before it blew to pieces he saw and heard bombs exploding in the WTC 7 and caught a glimpse out of window and saw WTC 1, WTC 2 was still *standing*, several floors exploded right out under Jennings.
Eye witness saw and heard explosions going off in WTC 7 before Tower 1& 2 fell.

Barry Jennings –
WTC survivor. Witness before the 9/11 Commission. Deputy Director, Emergency Services Department, New York City Housing Authority. Was in WTC Building 7 on 9/11.
• Interview with Jason Bermas on The Alex Jones Show in which recordings of Barry Jennings were played 6/19/07:
Statements of Barry Jennings: "I was asked to go and man the Office of Emergency Management at the World Trade Center 7 on the 23rd floor. ... [S]ecurity and police took us to the freight elevators where they took us back up and we did get in.

Well, I'm just confused about one thing and one thing only, why World Trade Center 7 went down in the first place? I'm very confused about that.

I know what I heard; I heard explosions.

The explanation I got was it was the fuel oil tank. I'm an old boiler guy. If it was the fuel oil tank, it would have been one side of the building. ...

As I told you earlier, both buildings were still standing. Because I looked to, I looked one way, looked the other way, there's nothing there.

When I got to the 6th floor before all this happened, I got to the 6th floor, there was an explosion, that’s what forced us back to the 8th floor, both buildings were still standing." at 4:30 of the audio segment at www.youtube.com...

• Statement to reporter 9/11/01: "Me and Mr. Hess, Corporation Counsel [of New York City], were on the 23th floor [of WTC 7]. I told him we gotta get out of here. We started walking down the stairs. We get to the 8th floor. Big Explosion. Blew us back into the eighth floor." www.youtube.com...

• www.patriotsquestion911.com...

reply to post by GoodOlDave


The NIST report is not defeinitive. Even it states only about "probabilities" of things happening, and in earlier drafts, the probability of Building 7 collapsing from fire is low.

The conclusion of the NIST report is something along the lines of "Well, maybe this happened, although we don't have jack to prove it and we had to modify the computer model we used to make it fit, but since it's all we have and we really can't be bothered investigating further, this is what happened because we say so."

There are a number of scientists and engineers, most of whom have nothing to do with any 9/11 truth movement, who have criticized the NIST report as not being thorough or very scientific, and have been annoyed by the fact it hasn't been peer reviewed, as many engineers and scientists have ongoing interest in building 7's collapse, if to learn something from it in building new buildings, or changing the way they engineer new high rises.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Unfortunately for your conspiracy scenarios, you are wrong. NIST did release a report documenting the collapse of WTC 7 last August. . .

The final report describes how debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7 at the western half of the south face.

Unfortunately for your government scenarios, you are wrong. NIST DID NOT state how the fires started in any of the floors, other than they were caused by 'debris' from the collapse of WTC 1.

The question asked in this thread is how the fires actually started. NIST waved their hands over the issue. They don't know, so they just stated that it was debris from WTC 1. There is NO specific mention of how the fires actually started.

reply to post by impressme


Also dont forget that Barry Jennings was speaking of these explosions he experienced on that day (9/11) to a random reporter. His story has never changed.

Another thing that makes no sense to me is you got the OEM of NYC. That supposedly had all these things incorporated into the 23rd floor like its own safety features.

Yet they didn't plan for a emergency where the city water lines to the building might be cut during a fire? Please, the building had to have its own redundant water fire prevention features. I cannot believe that there were no internal water tanks like there were all over the towers. I can begin to understand that the plane impacts somehow disabled the ability for those systems to work but WTC7 obviously did not get hit with a plane.

Also, why weren't all of the surrounding buildings lower levels set a blaze like WTC7 they all had to endure the same thing. All of them had all there windows blown out.

I have always felt that those explosions were part of the cover-up on that day the team that used the OEM were the ones who ran the entire op and they planted the bombs to take out WTC7.

[edit on 043030p://1826 by mike dangerously]

reply to post by Stillresearchn911

Yet they didn't plan for a emergency where the city water lines to the building might be cut during a fire? Please, the building had to have its own redundant water fire prevention features. I cannot believe that there were no internal water tanks like there were all over the towers. I can begin to understand that the plane impacts somehow disabled the ability for those systems to work but WTC7 obviously did not get hit with a plane.

WTC 7 DID have water storage for the sprinklers for floors above 21

Storage tanks, along with direct connections to the NYC water distribution system, supplied water for WTC 1 and WTC 2, and for floors 21 through 47 of WTC 7. Fire suppression systems for floors 1 through 20 in WTC 7 were supplied directly through the NYC water distribution system and an automatic fire pump, with no secondary supply

Problem is water is heavy so where do you store it?

Assumption made that water mains would be intact and functional to provide water - nobody expected collapse of not one but 2 110 buildings
destroying water system

Here is summary from NIST report detailing Fire suppression system at WTC buildings

74.125.93.104...:d5-tLMm54ZAJ:wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NCSTAR1-4ExecutiveSummary.pdf+water+tanks+wtc&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us &ie=UTF-8

While WTC 7 was not hit by planes was impacted by large section of
WTC 1 which slashed open south face of building - or did you forget that
or just ignore it like most conspiracy types?

Originally posted by thedman
While WTC 7 was not hit by planes was impacted by large section of
WTC 1 which slashed open south face of building - or did you forget that
or just ignore it like most conspiracy types?

Complete avoidance of the OP's question, thedman.

What started the fires in WTC 7? NIST don't know, otherwise they would have printed it. Are you going to answer the question or wave your hands around it?

Originally posted by impressme

The Nist report is a lie, and does not stand up to real science. However you can believe in a fairy tail if you like, however I choose not to.

Saying that you prefer to believe the NIST report is a fairy tale is not the same thing as actually proving it is a fairy tale. It's just another way of stating you don't want to listen to anything that refutes the story that you yourself prefer to believe.

I'm sorry, but merely saying "it's all a pack of lies" before running away giggling does nothing to advance your claims. I go for black and white proof based upon the known facts. If you can show that it's a lie then please go ahead and explain why it is a lie.

I take this witness very seriously Barry Jennings, he was in the WTC 7 before it blew to pieces he saw and heard bombs exploding in the WTC 7 and caught a glimpse out of window and saw WTC 1, WTC 2 was still *standing*, several floors exploded right out under Jennings.
Eye witness saw and heard explosions going off in WTC 7 before Tower 1& 2 fell..

For someone who is gleefully swinging his "it's all a pack of lies" bat around, you certainly have the audacity to spread a lie yourself. Your own quote says that Barry Jennings heard and saw explosions, *not* bombs. Of course he heard explosions. Fire fighters heard explosions. Passersby heard explosions. Television crews heard explosions. Everyone in Manhattan heard explosions. I do not know of anyone who is refuting there were explosions. That does not mean the explosions were from bombs. it only means that something that had the power to go BOOM actually went BOOM. This "he saw and head bombs" is entirely your own invention, and once we recognize that, we see there is nothing in Jennings' statement which refutes the NIST report.

Why? The explosions were almost certainly the many flammable items within the towers that would naturally explode when they catch on fire I.E. fuel tanks, high voltage transformers, etc. We know this because...

a) every large building in existence is chock full of flammable items such as fuel tanks, high voltage transformers, etc, so it necessarily stands to reason that WTC 7 had these items as well.

b) the explosions were random, as if they were going off as the fires reached them in turn. Controlled demolitions OTOH are detonated in mathematically calculated intervals to get the structure to fall the way they want it to fall.

c) if they were controlled demolitions, the structure would have fallen at that exact moment when the explosives went off, not hours later.

d) that's not even including the absurd proposal that a heavily occupied structure could ever be secretly rigged with demolitions without any of the tenants, security, maintenance crews, inspectors, etc seeing it. Rigging CD is a lengthy, intracate process requiring almost as much engineering and preparation as constructing the building was. It's like saying you'd never notice someone putting a new couch in your living room.

You claim that this does not "stand up to real science", so I invite you to explain what science you have that refutes this. The NIST report may indeed be flawed, I don't know, but it at least sounds more plausible than most of the other alternative scenarios based upon nothing but armchair sleuthing and too much television watching. Heck, not a few topics away from this one, someone is even suggesting it was caused by a hydrogen bomb.

reply to post by tezzajw


Okay what started fire - WTC 1 with multiple floors heavily involved in fire
collapses - debris from top of building rips open south face of building
allowing burning debris to penetrate into building and kindle fires

Is this too complicated for you?

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

There are a number of scientists and engineers, most of whom have nothing to do with any 9/11 truth movement, who have criticized the NIST report as not being thorough or very scientific, and have been annoyed by the fact it hasn't been peer reviewed, as many engineers and scientists have ongoing interest in building 7's collapse, if to learn something from it in building new buildings, or changing the way they engineer new high rises.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. In fact, the former head of NIST's fire engineering dept. James Quintiere did his own independent research, and instead of confirming the aircraft scraped off the fireproofing from the support columns as NIST claims, his results state there weasn't enough fireproofing to begin with. The meaning of this cannot be understated- it means that the fireproofing for many more buildings may be substandard, and may invite more catastrophic structural failures like we saw, under the right circumstances.

What I take objections to are these self serving conspiracy websites who deliberately take such information and manipulate it into sounding like it says something it really doesn't for their own gain. They will quote Dr. Quintiere refuting NISTs findings, for example, but they intentionally omit what his findings actually are. This false reporting is how I was introduced to Dr. Quintiere's work to begin with- I read what they claimed he said, then did a web search to find his report, and find he's actually saying somethign different from what they claim he's saying.

There is no way, shape, or form, that this misquoting of Dr. Quintiere can be accidental. It has to be deliberate attempt at deception.

Originally posted by tezzajw
The question asked in this thread is how the fires actually started. NIST waved their hands over the issue. They don't know, so they just stated that it was debris from WTC 1. There is NO specific mention of how the fires actually started.

If you're looking for the exact initial source of the fire, then yes, NIST doesn't know nor is it likely that anyone will ever know, but NIST did report that debris from the towers rained down on WTC 7 and fires appeared thereafter, so technically, either burning debris hit WTC 7 and caused flammable material within it to start burning itself, or debris hit WTC and whacked some source of flammable material within, igniting it and causing it to catch fire. Whether the initial source of the fire was a fuel tank, or a high voltage electrical transformer, or a "made in China" chair manufactured with unsafe flammable fabric, is really immaterial.

It can be likened to the sinking of the Titanic- there's debate whether the iceberg opened up numerous large gashes, or one long continuous gash, or whether it even opened up gashes at all and it was really due to an inferior quality of iron buckling at the joints under the stress. Nonetheless just becuase there is such debate over the exact mechanics of the sinking it doesn't mean Titanic really wasn't sunk by an iceberg, and instead was sunk by some nefarious conspiracy involving preplanted explosives, secret cults of Satan worshippers, or what have you.

Originally posted by thedman
Okay what started fire - WTC 1 with multiple floors heavily involved in fire
collapses - debris from top of building rips open south face of building
allowing burning debris to penetrate into building and kindle fires

Is this too complicated for you?

No, it's too simplified for me.

How much 'burning debris' was there? What did it consist of? How was it still burning after falling multiple numbers of floors before it crashed into 7?

Keep waving your hands around how it happened.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
It can be likened to the sinking of the Titanic

GoodOlDave - your off-topic posts about the Titanic are pointless. Again, you're waving your hands around how the fires started in 7, completely avoiding the purpose of the OP. Let's not speculate about sunken luxury liners to try and appear authorative about what happened with the fires on 7.

reply to post by GoodOlDave


I am not going to play this old game with you, so I will give you the link that will answer all your questions about building seven and explosions. If you have any viable evidence to refute these scientists and engineers, please provide it.

Scientists, Scholars, Architects & Engineers respond to NIST

www.911blogger.com...




[edit on 13-4-2009 by impressme]

Originally posted by tezzajw


GoodOlDave - your off-topic posts about the Titanic are pointless. Again, you're waving your hands around how the fires started in 7, completely avoiding the purpose of the OP. Let's not speculate about sunken luxury liners to try and appear authorative about what happened with the fires on 7.

Oh, no, the point I'm trying to make is perfectly clear. It's just that you don't want to acknowledge it becuase you know where it's going to lead.

The original question that started this thread is "what was the initial source of the fire" which is something we're almost certainly never going to know. For most people outside of the conspiracy circles, yeah, it'd be an interesting detail, like knowing the exact reason how the iceberg sank the Titanic, but in the end, like the sinking of the Titanic ultimately being caused by an iceberg, the fire was still ultimately caused by falling debris from the towers so the exact specific starting point of the fire is largely academic, and doesn't add much value outside of inserting an extra paragraph or two in the history books.

From what I've seen, it seems that a large bulk of the justification behind the conspiracy theorists' wanting to know such things is becuase they wish to take advantage of the gaps of our understanding and fill them with their own claims of conspiracy, which is being intellectually dishonest. Just becuase they don't know what happened to every nut, bolt, and door hinge in the WTC complex it certainly doesn't automatically give any license to the idea there was some nefarious secret conspiracy going on. It simply means "we don't know". These conspiracy claims have a long, long, LONG way to go after that, before they can be considered remotely credible.

So, if you want me to be direct and to the point, I'll be direct and to the point- why, exactly, is it so important for you to know the exact, specific initial source of the fire in WTC 7? How does it help you to know whether it was a fuel tank, electrical transformer, a large chunk of burning debris, a waste paper basket full of paper, or whatever?