WTC 7 collapse
FDNY Fire chief Daniel Nigro says further assessment of the
damage indicated that it was severe:
The biggest decision we had to make was to clear the area and
create a collapse zone around the severely damaged [WTC Building
7]. A number of fire officers and companies assessed the damage
to the building. The appraisals indicated that the building's
integrity was in serious doubt.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-634
Another fireman reported damage that progressed as the day wore
on.
FDNY Deputy Chief Peter Hayden
Division 1 - 33 years
...also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would
collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner
between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and
we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually
could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three
floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by
about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was
going to collapse.
Firehouse: Was there heavy fire in there right away?
Hayden: No, not right away, and that’s probably why it stood for
so long because it took a while for that fire to develop. It was
a heavy body of fire in there and then we didn’t make any
attempt to fight it. That was just one of those wars we were
just going to lose. We were concerned about the collapse of a
47-story building there. We were worried about additional
collapse there of what was remaining standing of the towers and
the Marriott, so we started pulling the people back after a
couple of hours of surface removal and searches along the
surface of the debris. We started to pull guys back because we
were concerned for their safety.
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/hayden.html