Muscatine

By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press

The fact that a Spanish skyscraper is still standing after an intense
fire consumed the steel and concrete tower for 24 hours provides real
world evidence that fire alone does not cause high-rise towers to
collapse.

As an intense fire consumed the 32-story Windsor Building in Madrid's
business district, the press reports all began with the words "fear
of collapse." After 24 hours, however, the tower, which was a similar
construction to the twin towers of the World Trade Center, remained
standing.

The fact that an extremely severe fire did not cause the Spanish
steel and concrete tower to collapse raises serious questions about
the events of 9/11 and how they have been explained. Why did the
Windsor Building remain standing when similar towers in New York City
collapsed completely after being affected by much less intense fires
burning for considerably shorter periods of time?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sponsored engineers to
conduct the World Trade Center Building Performance Study (BPS) to
examine how the buildings of the WTC responded to the airplane
crashes and fires that allegedly caused the collapses of the twin
towers and WTC 7, a 47-story office building on the next block.

"Prior to September 11, 2001, there was little, if any, record of
fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings," the
BPS says in the chapter about the mysterious collapse of WTC 7, the
third tower to collapse on 9/11. WTC 7 was not hit by aircraft or
large pieces of debris and had only sporadic fires. At about 5:25
p.m., WTC 7, owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed in what appeared
to be a controlled demolition.

It would be more accurate to say that no steel framed high-rise, like
WTC 7, has ever collapsed due to fire. The fact that the Windsor
Building is still standing is proof that fire alone does not cause
properly constructed steel and concrete towers to collapse.

Dr. W. Gene Corley, Senior Vice President of Construction Technology
Laboratories (CTL) of Skokie, Ill., was team leader of the engineers
who wrote the BPS.

CTL is a subsidiary of the Portland Cement Association and "provides
structural and architectural engineering, testing, and materials
technology services throughout the U.S. and internationally."
According to its website, "CTL's expertise extends beyond cement and
concrete, encompassing virtually all structural systems and
construction materials."

WACO, OKLAHOMA CITY, AND WTC

Corley served as expert adviser during the government's investigation
of the 1993 fatal fire at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.
In 1995, Corley led a Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT)
investigation of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City. In September 2001, once again, Corley was selected to
head the team to study building performance after the attack on New
York's World Trade Center.

In the executive summary of the WTC study, Corley wrote that
secondary fires caused the twin towers to collapse:

"The heat produced by this burning jet fuel does not by itself appear
to have been sufficient to initiate the structural collapses.
However, as the burning jet fuel spread across several floors of the
buildings, it ignited much of the buildings' contents, causing
simultaneous fires across several floors of both buildings," Corley
wrote. "Over a period of many minutes, this heat induced additional
stresses into the damaged structural frames while simultaneously
softening and weakening these frames. This additional loading and the
resulting damage were sufficient to induce the collapse of both
structures."

In the section that deals with the collapse of the twin towers, the
BPS says: "Because the aircraft impacts into the two buildings are
not believed to have been sufficient to cause collapse without the
ensuing fires, the obvious question is whether the fires alone,
without the damage from the aircraft impact, would have been
sufficient to cause such a collapse...it is impossible, without
extensive modeling and other analysis, to make a credible prediction
of how the buildings would have responded to an extremely severe fire
in a situation where there was no prior structural damage."

The Windsor Building fire in Madrid provides an excellent real-world
model to show how the twin towers should have responded to "an
extremely severe fire" alone. The Windsor Building has central
support columns in its core section, which is similar to the
construction of the twin towers. This central core is what supported
the gravity load of the towers.

In the Windsor Building fire, the fire is thought to have started on
the 21st floor late on Saturday night, Feb. 12. The upper floors were
consumed by intense fire for at least 18 hours. The fire moved down
the building and burned the entire structure. The fire is reported to
have burned temperatures of at 800 degrees Celsius, or nearly 1,500
degrees Fahrenheit.

There was a partial collapse of parts of the top 10 floors as the
trusses, which went from the core columns to the outside walls,
appear to have failed. It is important to note, however, that the
lower floors did not collapse and the core section is still standing
with a construction crane on the roof.

The complete failure of the 47-central support columns in the twin
towers of the WTC is one of the key outstanding questions about what
caused their collapses. It would be expected that they should have
remained standing even if some of the floor trusses failed. There is
no explanation for what caused the huge box columns to fail.

Two of the contractors who removed the rubble told AFP that they had
found molten steel in the 7th basement level when they reached the
bedrock where the columns were based. There is no explanation for
what caused such intense residual heat to be found at the base of the
twin towers, although some experts have pointed to powerful
explosives.

By press time, Dr. Corley had not responded to questions about the
BPS findings and the questions raised by the Windsor Building fire.
Corley's assistant told AFP that he had just gone to the airport and
would not be returning to the office until Feb. 28.

The Windsor Building was built from 1973-1979 in an area of Madrid
where commercial property was developed on land owned by Rio Tinto,
the international mining giant. This is thought to be the reason why
the Windsor Building carries the name of the British royal family.
The WTC towers were completed in the early 1970's.

The Windsor Building housed the offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu,
a multinational financial services company, which occupied 20 floors
of the tower.

The area where the Windsor Building stands is a mixed residential and
commercial area known as the AZCA zone. Dubbed 'Madrid's Manhattan',
AZCA contains a cluster of modern skyscrapers. The tallest one is the
Torre Picasso, a 516-foot tower built in 1989. The Picasso Tower was
designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the twin towers of the
WTC. Unión de Explosivos Río Tinto, S.A., owns the land where the
tower stands.

Finis

The Windsor Building (Edificio Windsor) in Madrid, Spain burned "like
a torch" for more than 18 hours from Saturday night, Feb. 12. After
burning in an uncontrolled inferno the tower's core columns remain
standing with a huge construction crane on top of the roof. This
evidence supports the fact that prior to 9/11 NO steel-framed high-
rise had ever collapsed due to fire. On 9/11 the 47-story WTC 7,
owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed at 5:25 p.m. There is no
explanation for why the WTC 7 collapsed except for the fact that
Silverstein told PBS that the decision was made to "pull it" and "we
watched it come down."

If a fire can collapse a skyscraper, then why didn't these skyscrapers collapse from their massive fires that were all much larger and most burned for much longer than the fire at the WTC 7?

Windsor Tower Fire - Feb. 13, 2005

"A fire described as the worst in Madrid's history ravaged a 32-story skyscraper in the Spanish capital's financial district on Sunday, causing no injuries, but the tower stayed upright despite fears of collapse.
More than 200 firefighters worked all night to quell the spectacular blaze in the Windsor building, the city's eighth largest tower that looms over the northern financial district.
"We have confronted the most extensive fire that this city has ever had," Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon said.
At its peak, the fire lit up the Madrid sky like a huge torch as temperatures inside reached 1,000 degrees centigrade.
Giant balls of flame billowed up into the night as parts of its sides collapsed, raining fire on to the street below. Surrounding buildings were evacuated and roads blocked.
The blazing tower evoked memories for many Spaniards of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York." - ABC/Reuters (02/13/05)

"The skyscraper in Madrid's business district that was gutted by a weekend fire remains upright, but unstable, today.
The blaze started on Saturday night and declared under control about 21 hours later.
Within hours of catching fire at about the 21st floor, several top floors collapsed onto lower ones.
"If the partial collapses keep happening, it would be lying to say it's impossible that the whole building couldn't fall down," firefighter official Fernando Munilla said.
Madrid police chief Constantino Mendez said even if the building didn't collapse "it will have to be demolished because it's in ruins".
"There is no such thing as zero risk but I'd say it's not very likely it will collapse," Aroca said.
"It immediately reminded me of the attack on the twin towers," in New York in September 2001, one onlooker said." -Sydney Morning Herald/AP/AFP (02/14/05) (Photos source:  SkyScraperPage.com)

(See also:  9/11 and the Windsor Tower Fire - Christopher Bollyn)

Parque Central Torre Este Fire - Oct. 17, 2004

"Military helicopters doused one of Venezuela's tallest buildings with water Sunday, bringing under control a blaze many feared might cause the tower to collapse.
Earlier, nearby residences and businesses were evacuated. Two floors and some staircases in the building collapsed. But by Sunday afternoon, the temperature inside the burning building had dropped, lessening the danger of a collapse, Caracas fire chief Rodolfo Briceno said.
"Engineers have gone up there and inspected" the building, Briceno said, adding that "it is very solid."
Neighbors of the 56-story, 730-foot office tower were allowed to return to their residential buildings in downtown Caracas' Parque Central complex Sunday afternoon, but firefighters expected to work through the night to extinguish the last flames and keep them from spreading.
The blaze began before midnight Saturday on the 34th floor of the East Tower in the complex, Briceno said. By Sunday afternoon, it had burned for more 17 hours and spread over 26 floors, reaching the roof. The complex was built in 1976 and is considered a Caracas landmark.
The high temperatures also stopped firefighters from reaching the tower's upper floors, where the fire was strongest. Military troops and rescue teams were brought in to help, and military helicopters flew over the building, dropping water on the tower, which houses government offices and ministries.
Firefighters' efforts were also hampered by malfunctioning water pumps and the lack of fire extinguishers inside the building as fire laws are not strictly enforced in Venezuela.
Earlier in the day, officials expressed fears that the building might collapse.
"There is a problem because the building is made of steel. Because of the high temperatures, the structure could collapse," Interior minister Jesse Chacon told President Hugo Chavez during his weekly radio and television show." -CBS (10/18/04) (Right photo source:  turpial.org)

One Meridian Plaza Fire - Feb 23, 1991

"At about 8 p.m. on Saturday, 23 February 1991, linseed oil-soaked rags left behind by a cleaning crew burst into flames on the 22nd floor of the 38-story One Meridian Plaza in downtown Philadelphia. The fire quickly spread, unimpeded by fire sprinklers, throughout the 22nd floor and then upward.
The twelve-alarm fire burned for 18 hours. The extreme heat caused window glass and frames to melt and concrete floor slabs and steel beams to buckle and sag dramatically. Large shards of window glass fell from the facade, cutting through fire hoses on the ground around the building. Three firefighters were trapped on a fully engulfed floor, and efforts to rescue them failed.
The fire would not yield and there were increasing concerns about the stability of the structure. Fire officials called off the attack and allowed the fire to "free burn," concentrating their efforts on containing the fire to this building. When the fire reached the 30th floor, a tenant-installed fire-sprinkler system was activated, and the worst high-rise fire in U.S. history was finally brought under control.
Some of the aluminum framing and glass melted, indicating temperatures in the range of 1,000 degrees F to 1,300 degrees F.
After the fire, some areas of the granite crumbled readily under hand pressure due to a phase change in the quartz crystals that occurs at temperatures of about 1,060 degrees F." -Simpson Gumpertz & Heger

(Photo courtesy of:  Serendipity)

First Interstate Bank Fire - May 4, 1988

"During the late evening of May 4, 1988, and the early morning of May 5, 1988, members of the Los Angeles City Fire Department successfully battled what has proven to be the worst, most devastating high-rise fire in the history of Los Angeles. Extinguishing this blaze at the 62-story First Interstate Bank Building, 707 West Wilshire Boulevard, required the combined efforts of 64 fire companies, 10 City rescue ambulances, 17 private ambulances, 4 helicopters, 53 Command Officers and support personnel, a complement of 383 Firefighters and Paramedics, and considerable assistance from other City departments.
It is humbling and terrifying to realize how close we came to losing control of this fire! Had it not been for the extraordinary commitment to duty, staunch determination to extinguish the fire at all costs, and unabated heroism and courage of our brave Firefighters, I am convinced that the fire would not have been contained as it was in 3-1/2 hours." - LAFire.com

Golden Plaza Tower Fire - Feb. 26, 2005

"RESCUE helicopters plucked nine people to safety from a revolving restaurant on top of a blazing building in Taiwan yesterday after fire and thick smoke killed four people in the 23-storey block.
The blaze was visible from miles around the island's third city, but no information was immediately available about the cause of the fire.
The fire apparently started on the 18th floor and spread higher through the tower before it was extinguished, officials said.
The fire department was called to the blaze in the city centre building at about 4pm local time.
A spokesman said it took about one and a half hours to extinguish." -Scotsman (02/27/05)