Here is the answer to HD's OP, re-posted from the thread referenced above:
Whenever there is any sort of fire in any sort of high-rise building CT's get their undies in a bunch about why the building didn't collapse like on 9/11, usually phrased in vague inference & innuendo rather than direct to-the-point claims about how this is somehow proof that 7 World Trade Center must have been a controlled demolition. On New Years eve in Dubai there was a spectacular high-rise fire at the Address Hotel (the 5th high-rise fire in Dubai in the last 18 months IIRC) and of course the Facebook CT pages and other sites didn't even wait for the flames to die out before making their comparisons to 9/11 and questions as to why it didn't collapse like on 9/11.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2863...3699423650250/
The answer to why buildings don't just fall down at the first whiff of smoke is of course simple and obvious (so long as you are not a conspiracy theorist) - the two situations were dramatically different. Not all buildings are the same and not all fires are the same, so to expect the same results from totally different scenario's is,... a bit daft.
It looks pretty spectacular in large part because the fire occurred at night when fire is much more visible than during the day (a fact inexplicably lost on most CT's) AND because the fire was confined almost entirely to the exterior of the building.
So why didn't the Address collapse like the buildings on 9/11? It was tall and it was on fire right? Because 9/11 happened that must mean that any tall building that catches fire has to collapse, right?
1. The design and construction of the buildings which collapsed from impact and internal fire on 9/11/2001 was fundamentally different. Dubai Address - like most tall buildings in Dubai - is of reinforced concrete construction which is dramatically more fire resistant than steel framing.
2. The nature of the fires was completely different. The buildings which collapsed on 9/11 all suffered un-fought internal fires. The fire at Dubai Address was confined almost entirely to the buildings exterior.
The Dubai Address' exterior cladding caught fire. In the few places where this exterior fire did break through to the buildings interior the existing and intact fire protection systems combined with active fire fighting efforts prevented it spreading inside. Because it was an exterior fire, firefighters were able to easily reach the points where it broke through inside and almost certainly could even preposition in anticipation of fire breaking in.
Unlike the interior fires on 9/11, most of the heat output from the Dubai Address fire is being taken away from the structure by convection and radiation. In addition, no equivalent to hot smoke and gas flashover is even possible, which eliminates the highest temperature combustion which plagues an interior fire. Fire on the outside looks spectacular, but allows the structure to freely radiate off heat and the primary structure therefore doesn't dangerously heat up.
3. Active firefighting and fire suppression was not impaired at Dubai Address.
Unlike 9/11 the active and passive fire suppression at Dubai Address was not compromised in any way. They had full water pressure for sprinklers and hoses, all fireproofing was in place and fire stops were unbroken. This was not the case on 9/11 where 2 buildings suffered through-and-through's from massive high-speed airliners and the third had its side ripped out by a collapsing tower which also cut off the water supply. Sprinklers help cool the air in addition to putting out the fires so even if they can't put out the fire they can still dramatically reduce the gas temperature inside the building. The 9/11 buildings didn't have that.
In Dubai sprinklers worked and the fire department could send fully manned and equipped fire battalions with full access to the building to fight the fire effectively and as a result, the fire never spread to the building interior and there was no build-up of dangerous gas temperatures under the ceilings. On 9/11 because 300+ firefighters had just been killed, much of their equipment destroyed and the water supply cut off, 7 WTC was left to burn with fires unfought.
Lets put an end to the cycle. The fact that a dozen or a hundred other tall buildings did not collapse from fire does not mean no building can collapse if subjected to the right combination of events. There are no direct analogues for what happened on 9/11, and any indirect ones that do exist are very limited in how they can be applied.
BTW -
Witnesses reported hearing explosions during the Dubai Address fire and yet somehow the building didn't collapse. Odd.
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