In person?
Have you ever fought fires or had high rise training?
Not personally, but my partner is a fire captain who has has extensive high rise training, elevator training, etc. and is part of the high rise unit. He is also a member of a HUSAR team and a CBRN team. He has been a firefighter for 20 years and his station - specifically his truck - typically comes in at the busiest or among the three busiest in the country annually. He knows of what he speaks. Moreover, I have personally spoken with a FDNY battalion commander who was at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 about the events of that day.
First of all firefighting operations were ongoing. They believed they could extinguish it or they would not have been in there. Second, they would not have been in there if they assessed ANY possibility of a collapse. That is THE first consideration of an IC. There was NO precedent of this in history. NYFD is the best at this topic.
You are incorrect in asserting that the firefighters believed that they could put out the fires in the towers. They were concerned from very early on that they were too large and too high up to fight successfully. The mission was very early on treated as a search/rescue/evacuate operation. Of course, they may have held out some hope that they could reach and contain the fires, but research into this particular topic will show you that they really did not expect to be able to do so.
They did not anticipate the collapse to occur so completely or so quickly, that is true. However, remember that the firefighters were inside the building, had poor communications with anyone outside, and had no idea about the conditions of the buildings above the floors that they managed to reach. I am sure you know from your research that personnel in the NYPD helicopters were, in fact, concerned about the possibility of collapse, and I'm sure you know that there were engineers on the ground who warned of collapse very early on.
Moreover, the firefighters had no way of knowing how much damage had been done as a result of the airplane impact, nor any way of knowing how much of the fireproofing had been dislodged as a result.
Of course, there was no precedent for this. Large, fuel heavy jetliners had never before been deliberately crashed into 110 storey buildings at high speed.
Edit to add: I see that many of these points have also been addressed by Gravy above.
Off topic, but I'm just curious: why do you consistently refer to FDNY as NYFD?
Notice the dark smoke of an oxygen starved fire as well.
This has been discussed numerous times on other threads here. Edit to add: and I see that it has been addressed above as well.
Then you want me to believe it happened 3 times in one day? With molten fire in all 3 basements? No way.
Argument from incredulity.
That fire is deceptive in that photo. If you want to learn about it I will tell you. Notice on the left where floors had actually burned out from consuming the fuel load. The fire on the right may look "massive" to the untrained eye but it is only lapping up the side of the building making it look like multiple floors are burning.
Notice for a mostly open office space floor system the rest of the windows are not showing flame on that floor? Imagine that there is a decent sized combustible fire going in there. Notice the wind and smoke direction. The leeward side has a "draw" to it. The fire has moved to the air and is likely only burning to that degree right there.
I'm sorry but I do not believe that your photo anyalysis skills are refined enough to make those assertions with any degree of certainty. Each floor of the WTC was approximately an acre in size and I think that you are beyond your expertise when you claim to make those kind of positive assertions. Moreover, there are plenty of other photos and videos showing the massive fires. For you to argue to the contrary is rather extraordinary.
Edit to add: and I see that this has also been addressed above by others.
The NYFD firefighters would have gone in there with two 1 3/4" lines and knocked that down in a couple of minutes. Maybe a 2 1/2".
Oh, please. The firefighters themselves knew that they could not put the fires out. It is beyond presumptuous for you to assert that they could as though it was a walk in the park.
Ask somebody else if you don't trust me.
I have. As mentioned above, my partner is a fire captain, HUSAR member, and CBRN member, and I have spoken with a battalion commander who was at the WTC on September 11/01. There is also much documentation on this in the various professional reports.
Edit to add: in another post of yours, Russell, you mentioned fire shutters. Please elaborate on where you believe there were fire shutters located in the WTC buildings.
