Slide #36 - Two Small Fires?

Weasel Worded Slide Title

This slide is meant to show how different the fires in 7 World Trade were from the buildings Gage mentioned in the previous slide. The title phrase is as follows:

Compare those 2 small Fires
in WTC Bldg #7

Does Gage mean "2" as in "there were only two small fires in WTC 7"? Or does he mean "2" as an substitute for the word "to", and that there were only small fires in 7 World Trade?

He couldn't mean only two fires. He's said that there were a "few" small fires earlier in the presentation. He's just using the number 2 as impact. It makes this slide a little unusual, a little more memorable, and what will you remember? The number 2, along with that nice pleasant picture of only two small fires in the building.

The Fires in 7 World Trade

I've shown you this before, but as a reminder here, the NIST Interim Report on Building 7 compiled the following list of fires actually observed in the building:

From 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.:

• No diesel smells reported from the exterior, stairwells, or lobby areas
• No signs of fire or smoke were reported below the 6th Floor from the exterior, stairwells or lobby areas
• In the east stairwell, smoke was observed around Floors 19 or 20, and a signs of a fully involved fire on the south side of Floor 23 were heard/seen/smelled from Floor 22.
• Interviews place a fire on Floor 7 at the west wall, toward the south side, at approximately

12:15 p.m.

• From West and Vesey Streets near the Verizon Building, fires were observed in floors estimated to be numbered in the 20s and 30s.

Looking from the southwest corner at the south face:

• Fire was seen in the southwest corner near Floor 10 or 11
• Fire was seen on Floors 6, 7, 8, 21, and 30
• Heavy black smoke came out of a large, multi-story gash in the south face

Looking from the southeast corner of the south face:

• Fire seen on Floor 14 (reported floor number) on south face; the face above the fire was covered with smoke
• Fire on Floor 14 moved towards the east face

Looking at the east face:

• Fire on Floor 14 (reported floor) moved along east face toward the north side

Photographs and videos were used with these interview accounts to document fire progression in the building. The fires seen in photographs and videos are summarized:

Before 2:00 p.m.

• Figures L-22a shows fires that had burned out by early afternoon on Floors 19, 21, 22, 29, and 30 along the west face near the southwest corner.

2:00 to 2:30 p.m.

• Figure L-24a shows fires on east face Floors 11 and 12 at the southeast corner. Several photos during this time show fires progressing north.

3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

• Around 3 p.m., fires were observed on Floors 7 and 12 along the north face. The fire on Floor 12 appeared to bypass the northeast corner and was first observed at a point approximately one third of the width from the northeast corner, and then spread both east and west across the north face.
• Some time later, fires were observed on Floors 8 and 13, with the fire on Floor 8 moving from west to east and the fire on Floor 13 moving from east to west. Figure L-24b shows fires on Floors 7 and 12.
• At this time, the fire on Floor 7 appeared to have stopped progressing near the middle of the north face.
• The fire on Floor 8 continued to move east on the north face, eventually reaching the northeast corner and moving to the east face.
• Around 4:45 p.m., a photograph showed fires Floors 7, 8, 9, and 11 near the middle of the north face; Floor 12 was burned out by this time.

Clearly there were not two small fires in the building only. And the fires weren't small. They were everywhere in the building.

More Pictures and Video

Again, let's look at more pictures of the fires.

Compare this photo, taken later in the day, to Gage's. 7 World Trade's footprint was about the size of a football field. Look at the burnt out floors there.

Remember also that the wind is to the back of the cameras here. Any flames would be blowing south, not north out the windows.

Here again is a picture of fires from the east face:

And then this footage of the fires burning. It starts out on the southwest corner, shows the incredible volume of smoke pouring out of 7 World Trade Center, and then shows the violent flames east corner:

YouTube video showing large extensive fires in 7 WTC

The fires on the east corner are the kinds of fires Gage questions the existence of. Go ahead, watch what Gage doesn't believe is there.

The Smoke Venting From 5 Up The Side of 7?

Some people like to pretend that the smoke you're seeing roiling out of 7 World Trade is actually coming from 5 World Trade across the street. 7 World Trade is sheltering 5 from the wind, and the smoke from 5 is billowing up and then away from 7.

The video above proves that this is baloney, however. Why is only 7 World Trade showing this proposed effect? Why isn't the Verizon building doing the same thing?

At 1:48 in the video, you can clearly see smoke on the ground in front of the Verizon building. It's the building in the foreground, on the same side of the street as 7 World Trade. Yet the smoke isn't rushing up the face of the Verizon building, which would shelter it from the wind just the same as 7. No, it's actually moving toward 7!

Aha! says the wind shelter proponent! The smoke is moving toward 7! That's exactly what is happening to the smoke from 5 World Trade.

Why, though, is the smoke heading for 7? Because 7 is emitting a huge volume of heated air. Heated air rises. The smoke in front of the Verizon building is moving toward 7 because 7 is on fire.

The Building Would Have Fallen Away Slowly

Slow is relative. Gage thinks the building fell in 6.5 seconds. It didn't. It took about 18 seconds to fall. It also fell slumped to the south, toward the damage and toward the severe fires in the southern half of the building.

Gage also thinks the building would have tipped over, like his earthquake pictures he'll be using in the next slide. I'll deal with this argument over there.

< Previous Slide | Index | Next Slide >