We use the NIST time-stamped photos to understand the west face fire movement and intensity.
For what purpose?
The entire row of about 60 perimeter columns along the west face of WTC1 was observed to give along the 97th or 98th floors along a straight horizontal line so rapidly that even frame-by-frame video analysis cannot detect a visible south-to-north failure progression.
We consider the failure of all points to be
simultaneous in the practical sense in that neither frame-by-frame analysis nor the naked eye can clearly distinguish a south-to-north failure progression as we would expect from a building that fails towards the south. We examine the initial failure line along the west perimeter
here.
We also notice that the entire perimeter just above the horizontal failure line slipped
over the lower perimeter, broke away from the building and went into freefall as 3 or 4 very large pieces
here The largest of those pieces appears to be cut along it's bottom edge as a straight, horizontal line (Yipes!!) as observed
here
In contrast to the brittleness along this horizontal failure line, we note the strength and resilience of the west perimeter below floor 94 which, even while the building was being destroyed, remained a totally intact, continuous sheet, projecting its top edge more than 600 feet from the base of the building while peeling outwards, shown
here
(note, according to Mirriam-Webster resilience is
1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress)
It is natural to look for a heat source along the west perimeter that can account for the phenomenal ease with which the entire west perimeter gave along a straight horizontal line with no noticable buckling whatsoever.
The following series of photos allow us to look for the fires that could have caused the steel to become so brittle and break along the initial failure line.
All photos are in the correct time sequence, earliest to latest.
Initial Damage
This series of photos shows that fire progression along the west face is very simple to follow.
There were 3 large distinct fires visible. They can easily be grouped as:
1) 97th floor fire
2) 98th floor fire
3) A mystery 104th fl fire
and
4) Small fires below fl 97
Looking for the brittle initial fault line allows us to ignore the last two listed, well outside the current range of interest.
The next 8 photos show the entire short history of the 97th floor fires.
The process flairs up quite quickly, burns strongly and becomes extinguished in only 16 minutes. This is the fire which appears responsible for the rapid fracture across a horizontal line during collapse initiation.
The 97th Floor Fires
The fire broke out quite suddenly at and around the NW corner, 97th floor under quite suspicious circumstances (a ball of fire ejected from the corner) at the moment the other tower, WTC2, was hit by an aircraft. This is shown quite well between 0:59 and 1:25 in the video
here.
In the photo above we see the fl 97, NW corner in flames at 9:02, where there is no visible fire just before WTC2 was struck at 9:00 as seen in
this photo.
The last time an intense 97th fl fire is witnessed is in the 9:10 photo.
Except for the fire on the right corner, you will see no more evidence of flame or fire on the 97th floor as the remaining photos prove.
In only 15 minutes the 97th fl fire spread across the entire west face, NW corner and north face to the airplane hole, burned intensely and faded away, never to rekindle.
Please note we have seen no evidence of 98 fl fires yet, nor will we until 9:41.
The 98th Fl Fires
We see how the 97th fl fires died down after 9:10, but the 98th floor fires don't become visible until the 9:41 photo. This gives us almost thirty minutes where we see no noticable fires (except the far right corner) on either of these floors.
The photos above and below show the observed maximum intensity of the 98th fl fire. The photo below isn't time-stamped but the photos appear to be taken at about the same time.
Intensity is observed to decrease after this point.
Conclusions
Please draw your own. I'll post mine after I receive enough feedback on this presentation.
Created on 04/22/2009 09:21 PM by admin
Updated on 05/02/2009 01:30 PM by admin
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