Other High-Rise Fires
Fires have never collapsed skyscrapers.
The 100+ year history of steel frame high-rise buildings
provides a number of documented examples of
skyscrapers subjected to severe fires.
Examples include:
- 1991 One Meridian Plaza fire in Philadelphia
- Raged for 18 hours
- Gutted 8 floors of the 38-floor building
- 1988 First Interstate Bank Building fire in Los Angeles
- Burned out of control for 3-1/2 hours
- Gutted 4 floors of the 64-floor tower
- Burned low in building
Both fires exhibited:
- large emergent flames
- extensive ongoing window breakage
- blazes filling entire floors
Neither fire damaged the support columns of these buildings.
Report by Iklim Ltd. describes damage in the Los Angeles fire:
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In spite of the total burnout of four and a half floors,
there was no damage to the main structural members
and only minor damage to one secondary beam
and a small number of floor pans.
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These fires were much worse than those in the Twin Towers or Building 7.
Neither fire significantly damaged any vertical steel columns.