What other fires have occurred in large, steel framed buildings?
Extensive fires have occurred in a few skyscrapers with steel structures, but none of them have collapsed even partially: • One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 23rd 1991[1] • First Interstate Bank Fire, May 4th 1998[2] [3] • Caracas Tower October 16/17th 2004[4] None of the buildings experienced partial collapse, and yet burned for a long time compared to the twin towers. One Meridian Plaza burned for over 19 hours and consumed 8 floors, First Interstate Bank burned for roughly 3.5 hours and destroyed 5 floors, and Caracas Tower burned for over 17 hours engulfing over 26 floors reaching the roof. It is evident that the fires burned for a long time destroying many floors of the structures. The buildings were feared to collapse, yet the steel structures survived the intense heat. The twin towers however collapsed in less than 2 hours after fires broke out. NIST’s explanation is fairly logical. They think that neither the fires nor the impacts alone could cause the to
Related Questions
- Do all commercial buildings need lightning protection? Do we need to treat steel framed buildings the same way that we treat concrete framed buildings?
- Is there any evidence of fire causing steel framed buildings to entirely collapse outside of 9/11?
- What other fires have occurred in large, steel framed buildings?
