FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."

"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

Two hose lines are needed, Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center. Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire. ''We should be able to knock it down with two lines,'' he tells the firefighters of Ladder Company 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower.

Lt. Joseph G. Leavey is heard responding: ''Orio, we're on 78, but we're in the B stairway. Trapped in here. We got to put some fire out to get to you.''

Ladder 15 had finally found the fire after an arduous climb to the 78th floor, according to the tape. They were in the B stairwell. On the other side of the fire were hundreds of people, blocked from fleeing by smoke and flame on the stairs. Chief Palmer was facing similar fires in the A stairwell, across the floor.

''We're gonna knock down some fire here in the B Stair,'' Lieutenant Leavey is heard telling one of his firefighters. ''We'll meet up with you. You get over to the A Stair and help out Chief Palmer.''

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car for an hour.
When you open the trunk, which one is really happy to see you???