Did World Trade Center Building 7 really collapse due to an office fuel load fire?

Did the World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) really completely collapse in freefall, symmetrically into its own footprint – in seven seconds – due to an office fuel load fire? I used to believe that – the official narrative, but now, I can no longer accept that explanation. For many of us, this is still a visceral and emotional subject, but it’s been 23 years since September 11, 2001. A lot of the strong sentiments have died down enough to objectively consider more reasonable, scientific, and physical (physics) explanations.

WTC 7 was a 47-story steel highrise that stood at 610 ft. (190 m) and was clad in red granite masonry (Image 1). WTC Tower 1 was the first tower hit by a jetliner at 8:46 a.m. and collapsed at 10:28 a.m. The collapsing debris of Tower 1 was claimed to have started the fire in WTC 7 (Image 2), which collapsed at 5:20 p.m., six hours and 52 minutes later. The Lower Manhattan highrise building was not hit by an airliner, and no firefighter lives were lost in that total collapse. So why has the American fire service been so reluctant to discuss this subject? Why isn’t this collapse, which according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was caused by the fire from normal office fuel loads, the #1 case study in highrise firefighting history? It’s time to start asking the hard questions.

I’ve yet to see a training class or article on this historic incident, nor have I seen any NFPA standards changed to address the implications of this catastrophic structural failure. Did you know that not a single Type I Fire Resistive highrise building has ever collapsed due to fire? Not one in the United States, or in North America, or anywhere else in the world – only WTC 7 (Image 3). I was unaware of this fact until it was brought to my attention by members of Protecting All Protectors Alliance (PAPA).

Image 3 – Not a single Type I Fire Resistive highrise building has ever collapsed due to fire. Top L to R: Windsor Tower, Madrid, Spain 2005; One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA 1991; First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles, California USA 1988. Bottom L to R: Grenfell Tower, West London, UK 2017; ABBCO Tower, Dubai, UAE 2020; Tver, Russia 2024. (Images courtesy of PAPA)