Steel-frame building fires

Overview

This page is for information about fires in steel-frame high-rise buildings.

No such building has ever been known to collapse due solely to fire.

Notes

According to architect Richard Gage, fireproofing is only intended to withstand fire for 2 hours, so any fire lasting longer than that has probably burned through to the structural steel and begun heating it.

Related Pages

• Steel-frame building collapses

Incidents

need more specifics

• 2009-02-09 Fire Consumes WTC 7-Size Skyscraper, Building Does Not Collapse: 44-story building in Beijing
• 1993-02-26 New York, 1 World Trade Center: I seem to recall that there was some fire after the bomb went off, though this is not directly mentioned in any of the articles immediately available
• 1991-02-23 Philadelphia, 91 Meridian Plaza, 38 floors: 8 floors burned for 18 hours
• 1988-05-04 Los Angeles, First Interstate Bank 62 floors: 5 stories burned for 3.5 hours
• 1975-02-14 New York, 1 World Trade Center: fire breaks out between 9th and 14th floors; sprinklers are installed afterward
• Caracas, Venezuela, 56 floors: 26 floors burned for 17 hours
• New York Plaza, 50 stories: burned for 6 hours

All of these buildings, except for WTC1, are still in use.