Protective Fire Coating example essay topic

390 words
On September 11, 2001 the United States was brought to its knees as group of terrorists successfully took down the World Trade Center. There were many factors that contributed to the collapse. When the World Trade Center was built, a protective fire coating was sprayed on the beams used to construct the building. This coating was used so that in case of a fire, the beams would not be affected.

This would keep the buildings structural integrity intact. The World Trade Center was constructed using truss construction. Truss construction is a very strong and inexpensive method of building a structure. The one downfall to truss construction is that it fails easily when it is exposed to fire. When the planes crashed into the buildings, they were loaded with jet fuel. The amount of jet fuel in each plane caused an intense fire, which in turn burned for a while.

The initial blast of the planes hitting the buildings damaged the structure of many of the beams. When the planes exploded it caused the fire protective coating to be blown off making the beams susceptible to fire. The Fire Department knew that they would not be able to extinguish the fires with ease. They concentrated their efforts on saving lives instead of saving the building. This allowed for the fire to spread with ease through out the building, due to the unprotected beams and the contents of the offices.

The towers were built to collapse downward. The developers knew that if either of the towers were to fall any other way there would be extensive damage to the surrounding area. When the towers failed they collapsed as planned. The beams started to fall and produced an accordion like effect. They started to pile up on each other, when they started to fall air pockets started to form. This allowed the building to continue burning even though it was down.

Even though the United States was brought to it knees on that fateful day, the spirit and patriotism of the emergency service personnel blossomed. When the people watched the towers come down their hearts were filled with sadness for those who lost their lives but it did not break them.