Reply #40: You can't measure the temperature of a fire from the color of the smoke... [View All]

[Carefulplease]

NIST also produced large scale fire tests with workstations in typical WTC configurations and measured higher layer temperatures in excess of 1100C. You've got an over-restrictive conception of what physical evidence consists in. You would have to point to real flaws in the conception or interpretation of their tests or of their fire models before you could say that they have no evidence at all. Indirect evidence is often evidence enough.

Many tools NIST employed have been used many times in the past for the forensic investigation of building fires. There are uncertainties about the exact initial conditions and the details of the progression of the fires but the models have a certain robustness (insensitivity to variations in the initial conditions) and the general behavior of the fires seem well understood. Those high temperatures aren't surprising if you consider the specifics of the impacted towers. They were extremely well ventilated after the plane impacts. The speed of their progression and the (measurable) amount of smoke emited is proof of the high rate of heat release.