UL Whistleblower fired for comments on 9-11

[Darth Lucifer]

All of this just blows my mind. Our government is lying to us and this is just more evidence of it.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/no ... blower.htm

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More info:

UL Executive Speaks Out on WTC Study

"The buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel." - Kevin Ryan

Friday, November 12, 2004
(911Truth.org news service -- updated 11/13, 11/14)

An executive at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the company that certified the steel used in the construction of the World Trade Center, has questioned the common theory that fuel fires caused the Twin Towers to collapse.

In a letter dated Thursday (11/11, complete text below), UL executive Kevin Ryan called on Frank Gayle, director of the government team that has spent two years studying how the trade center was built and why it fell, to "do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel."

Kevin Ryan is Site Manager at Environmental Health Laboratories (EHL) in South Bend, Indiana. This is a division of UL, the product-compliance and testing giant. Because UL certified the WTC steel for its ability to withstand fires, the steel's performance on September 11 is obviously of concern to the company. While Ryan's letter does not constitute an official statement from Underwriters Laboratories, it suggests incipient disagreements between UL and NIST about the true cause of the WTC collapses.

Gayle is deputy chief of the Metallurgy Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and head of the "NIST and the WTC" team. A draft of the government agency's final report on the WTC collapses is due in January.

Ryan copied the letter to Gayle in e-mails to David Ray Griffin, author of the New Pearl Harbor, and to Catherine Austin Fitts, who is a member of the 911Truth.org board. Griffin requested and received permission to distribute Ryan's letter to other parties. The letter was published Friday (11/12) at septembereleventh.org, the site of the 9/11 Visibility Project.

911Truth.org called Ryan Friday to confirm his authorship. Ryan made it clear he is speaking for himself only, not on behalf of his laboratory or the company, but others at UL are aware of his action.

The letter raises disturbing questions, pointing out that the temperatures of fuel fires in the towers on September 11 appear to have been far too low to cause a failure of the structural steel.

A chemist by profession, Ryan said he considers Gayle to be a good scientist and an honest person. Given the impact of September 11 on events around the world, Ryan said everyone needs to know the full truth of what really happened on that day.

In a related development, the New York Times reported Friday (11/12) that the NIST team under Gayle is planning to hold some of its deliberations in secret. "The announcement has been sharply protested by advocates for families of the 9/11 victims, who said they were considering a lawsuit to force the agency to open the meetings to the public," the Times wrote.

As the Times noted, the NIST investigation was started in 2002 after lobbying by, among others, the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, an organization created by Monica Gabrielle and Sally Regenhard, both of whom lost family on September 11.

Gabrielle told the Times that NIST should have "one job, and one job only - to find out the truth of what happened to those buildings and to report to the public about it. You don't owe industry, the Port Authority or federal agencies anything. You owe it to the public - the truth, no matter where it goes." (See www.nytimes.com)

-911Truth.org (nl)

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Text of an e-mail letter from Kevin Ryan to Frank Gayle, Nov. 11:

[NOTES: Kevin R. Ryan is Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories at South Bend, Indiana (company site at www.ehl.cc). EHL is a division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (company site at www.ul.com). Frank Gayle is Deputy Chief of the Metallurgy Division, Material Science and Engineering Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Gayle heads the "NIST and the World Trade Center" project, see wtc.nist.gov. Dr. Gayle's biography is at wtc.nist.gov/pi/wtc_profiles.asp?lastname=gayle. The following text is taken from an e-mail forward, from Ryan to David Ray Griffin. Emphases are ours. - 911Truth.org]

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From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: frank.gayle@nist.gov

Date: 11/11/2004



Dr. Gayle,

Having recently reviewed your team's report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.

As I'm sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I'm aware of UL's attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of "experts" making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states "What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel . . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts." Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says "Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown's theory."

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building's steel core to "soften and buckle"(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C". To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I'm sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.

There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and "chatter".

Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I've copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.

1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/10 ... story.html

2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187

3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3Mechanicala ... fSteel.pdf

4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php

5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStat ... 04WEB2.pdf (pg 11)

6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf

Kevin Ryan
Site Manager
Environmental Health Laboratories
A Division of Underwriters Laboratories

South Bend

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is a conspiracy theory, plain and simple, and belongs with all other woo-woo conspiracy theories, laughed at and then ignored.

Let's review a few things:

I. The steel was exposed to 2,000 degree temperatures, the 500 degree figure is derived by a process which essentially boils down to lying with a thin film of pseudoscience.

II. Just because it was designed to withstand 2,000 degree temperatures for several hours without melting (and was this with an insulation? If so, what kind?) doesn't mean that it was designed to withstand those temperatures while holding up dozens of stories of a massive building. Think about that. Do you seriously think that steel retains all of its strength when placed under heat right up until the moment it turns to liquid? Ninety seconds watching a blacksmith work would eliminate such idiot-brained delusions.

III. Joints. You have to connect steel beams together somehow, you know. These are usually the weak points in any structure and they're completely ignored in these claims. Just because the steel can survive something doesn't mean the joints can and if they fail than all the strength in the beams is absolutely 100% worthless.

Christ, and I'm not even an engineer, too.

[Frank Hipper]

What alternative theory is this guy proposing?

[Beowulf]

What alternative theory is this guy proposing?

The US government/Israeli government/Elders of Zion rigged it for demolition, probably.

[Darth Lucifer]

Hey before you go and call me a fucking conspiracy theorist, I'm not proposing any alternative theories. I'm just displaying the info someone else put out there...considering that Mr. Ryan has professional credentials, I thought it merited looking at.

Duchess: Just to address a few points, the "Joints" you speak of were welded, bolted, had steel reinforced plating all around,had additional reinforcement with steel trusses which created a mesh connected to every other exterior steel column...236 columns to be exact. Plus diagonal bracing and steel rods connecting the trusses to the 47 massive interior columns. I'm not sure if Asbestos was being used during the time the WTC was built, but it had that or something similar applied to ALL of the steel.

As for point number I and II- Do you care to explain this process you speak of? You're going to have to do better than just say these numbers were derived from psuedoscience. They're not mine anyway. I'm not an engineer either. Actually I wish someone who was an engineer would look at this and post back.

As for the 2000 degree fires....actually, the fires were burning at much less than that for two reasons. A) the fire was black and sooty, which indicates poor combustion and B) There were people walking around in the fire zone.

In the meantime, here's a followup to the above drama:

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UL's Letter Disowning Ryan and 911Truth's Response

On November 13th, 911Truth was contacted by Paul M. Baker, the Media Relations manager of Underwriters Laboratories, who requested that we post a response from their company to Kevin Ryan's letter regarding critical problems with recent conclusions of the NIST investigations.

We emailed back that in the interest of fairness and balance, we would be happy to post their statement, but asked that it specifically address the issues Ryan raised as well as their expected efforts to distance themselves from his remarks. Our request was repeated in a telephone conversation with Mr. Baker at 7:00 PM on November 16th, the day of Ryan's firing. Mr. Baker said he had no info on the termination and that one problem with our demand was that NIST contractually "owned" all the UL analysis data and therefore no one else was permitted to review or discuss it. Nevertheless, he said he understood the importance of the issue and vowed to consult UL lawyers and "respond appropriately."

The next day we finally received the following UL letter, which addressed none of our questions or concerns, so we responded immediately with the next note below. It is now 48 hours later and we still have received no word so we are bringing you what we've got.

We will be updating this report as developments unfold, but in the meantime some of you may want to contact UL yourselves in search of more enlightening answers.

To: W. David Kubiak
From: Paul.M.Baker(@)us.ul.com
Subject: UL's statement regarding Kevin Ryan
Date sent: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:34:24 -0600

Dear Mr. Kubiak, thank you for your willingness to post UL's statement regarding Kevin Ryan's letter on your 9-11 Visibility Project and 911Truth web sites. Please see attached:

Paul M. Baker
Manager, Media Relations
Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
Northbrook, Ill., USA
(847) 272-8800 ext. 41001
Cell: (847) 602-2828
Paul.M.Baker(@)us.ul.com

UL Letter text:

On Nov. 11, 2004, a letter from Kevin Ryan, a former employee of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., addressed to the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), was posted on a Web site called the 9-11 Visibility Project (www.septembereleventh.org). In the letter, Mr. Ryan speculated on the causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

Mr. Ryan wrote the letter without UL’s knowledge or authorization. Mr. Ryan was neither qualified nor authorized to speak on UL’s behalf regarding this issue. The opinions he expressed in the letter are his own and do not reflect those of Underwriters Laboratories Inc.

UL’s Fire Protection Division has assisted NIST in its investigations regarding the collapse of the WTC towers. However, Mr. Ryan was not involved in that work and was not associated in any way with UL’s Fire Protection Division, which conducted testing at NIST’s request. Rather, Mr. Ryan was employed in UL’s water testing business, Environmental Health Laboratory, in South Bend, Indiana.

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. fully supports NIST’s ongoing efforts to investigate the WTC tragedy. We regret any confusion that Mr. Ryan’s letter has caused 9/11 survivors, victims’ families and their friends.

To: Paul.M.Baker(@)us.ul.com
From: W. David Kubiak
Subject: Re: UL's statement regarding Kevin Ryan
Date sent: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:21:10 -0500

Dear Mr. Baker,

Thank you for the letter, but I notice that neither it or your note address the important issues we discussed last night. Since the NIST findings are critical to our nation's understanding of the events of 9/11, they have serious implications for our subsequent policies, governance and collective security. They thus demand the greatest degree of disclosure and transparency.

Your letter's dismissal of Mr. Ryan's "speculation" on these matters simply on the grounds that he was not in the loop and assigned to another job, hardly addresses the primary questions at hand.

* Was he in possession of the data he was discussing?

* Are his reasoning and conclusions sound?

* If UL repudiates his logic, where specifically do you find fault?

* What were the official grounds for his immediate firing?

* Does NIST's proprietary control of the UL WTC data (that you spoke of) mean that it cannot be released for review to any other respected authorities in the engineering, fire-prevention or materials testing fields?

* Since our national (and architectural) security depend so heavily on the truth and integrity of these NIST investigations, what is this bizarre "proprietary" secrecy all about?

In other words, it is fine to assert that Mr.Ryan was not speaking for UL, but we want -- and indeed urgently need -- to know what UL has to say on these matters for itself.

As you are perhaps aware, there is serious widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct and conclusions of the Kean 9/11 Commission, which has yet to furnish the promised "definitive" explanation of the critical events of that day. The documented omissions, contradictions and outright falsehoods in their final report undermine public confidence in their consequent recommendations and thus our hope for truly improved security.

The 9/11 Commission's flaws are largely attributed to commissioners' conflicts of interest, political pressure and obstructive official secrecy. That is why so many have looked to the NIST investigations for non-politicized truth, disclosure and accountability. However, the increasing secrecy now shrouding their own hearings and data as well as harsh reprisals against citizens like Mr.Ryan who dare to publicly discuss the evidence seem to openly betray those expectations.

For generations, Underwriters Laboratories has built a priceless reputation for speaking inconvenient truth to economic power and making our lives and products safer. It appears to many of us that Mr. Ryan's statement embodied the best of that tradition and we wonder why you would not stand behind him now.

In sincere hope of an honest exchange on these issues,

W. David Kubiak
Executive Director
911truth.org
(207)967-2390

[aerius]

What a load of crock. No steel, not even the fancy stuff used in jet engine turbine blades will retain its full room temperature strength at 2000°F. Most steels start weakening at about half that temperature, look up the spec sheets and they'll say "do not use above 450°C", steels that can tolerate higher temps are quite expensive, and most importantly, there ain't enough of it in existence to build the WTC, not to mention their mechanical properties generally make them unsuitable for use as structural steel.

That bit about a forging temperature of 1100°C is completely irrelevant. Forging means the steel is soft enough to shape without cracking, by the time you hit that temp the steel has long since weakened to uselessness.

[Alan Bolte]

What alternative theory is this guy proposing?

The US government/Israeli government/Elders of Zion rigged it for demolition, probably.

In all fairness, he seems only to be suggesting that it might be a safety-related issue. A matter of structural design.

[aerius]

The 911Truth.org crackheads believe in the prepositioned demolition explosives theory. Here's their "official explanation".

http://www.911truth.org/media/wrh.pdf

Excerpts:

Jet fuel is capable of igniting fires at a maximum of 1,600-1,700°F. To melt steel, temperatures of 2,770°F are required. That fires from jet fuel could have ignited fires capable of collapsing WTC buildings is impossible according to science. WTC fires were not sufficiently hot, wide-spread and burning long-enough to have been capable of collapsing these buildings.

You don't need to melt steel to critically weaken it. 700-1000°F will easily do it.

The only viable alternative explanation is that WTC-2 and WTC-1 were collapsed by con-trolled demolition explosives placed throughout the buildings prior to the hijackings.

Whackaloons. Just like the idiots who claim the Pentagon wasn't hit by a plane because there supposedly wasn't enough wreckage.

[Darth Lucifer]

Aerius, according to Dr. Gayle, the steel "...was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F..."

BTW, thanks for the PDF. article link. That only brought up more questions...

[aerius]

Aerius, according to Dr. Gayle, the steel "...was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F..."

Yes, the steel on the perimeter panels, which is consistent with the NIST findings in this PDF
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStat ... 04WEB2.pdf (pg. 26 & 27)
Also, the column buckling and the walls being pulled inwards by unbalanced loads from damaged structural members as the official NIST theory goes is supported by the pictures on pg. 14-17 of that same report. The columns are clearly seen bending & failing, and the building is seen tilting in the direction of the bend before it collapses.

Walls & columns DO NOT bend in a controlled demolition, not to mention that to do a controlled demolition of the WTC towers, you have to sequence the explosions over about 0.5 - 1 seconds, and you'd hear each set of demo charges going off like a string of firecrackers. This didn't happen, I've seen the footage hundreds of times by now and there are no sounds of demo charges. Also, there is no way the wiring for a demo charges will survive a plane crashing into them, not to mention the explosives would've burned in the fire instead of detonating. Controlled demo is an absolute fucking bullshit theory.

[Stormbringer]

Several proffessors I've had were actually part of the investigative teams going over the World Trade Center collapse. I've heard a detailed lecture on the subject by one of them and the other has discussed it in class a couple times. And based simply on that the bullshit breaks down quickly.

1) They claim that the steel must effectively melt for it to fail.

The problem with that is it's just not true. There have been house fires in which steel frames have given out because of the heat; it doesn't take near as much as they would have us believe. They teach us all about the need for redunancy in case of fire in Structures. You'd think they could at least understand that metal becomes malleable well before it melts, dramatically so, which brings us to the next one:

2) It was actually consistant with a controlled demolition.

This one is just crap and based on a moronically superficial similarity. It imploded, there for it must have been a controlled implosion. Nothing could have been further from the truth, it actually rained debris over a major area around it. The impact was spread over a much greater area than the general public ever truly appreciated.

And unlike most buildings, the World Trade Center had an exterior structural system. Rather than running it up the core of the building like most, the WTC actually had it's structure in "columns" on the exterior. A good portion of those were sheared through by the initial impact casting doubt upon it's integrity to begin with; certainly it wiped out the safety margins. With a load dramatically off certain the building was largely doomed anyway. The jet fuel fires simply guarenteed it.

[SPOOFE]

The reason Kerry lost is because all the cries of "Bush lied!" are muddied up by completely inept and equally dishonest-sounding piles of bullshit like that presented in the OP.

[Beowulf]

It's important to note that there's no evidence that Mr. Ryan is a metallurgist. Being in charge of the Enviromental Health Labratory implies that his field of specialization, if he's a engineer, and not just an MBA, would not be in the field of how metal reacts to heat and forces.

[Darth Wong]

(sigh) Much of the strength of steel comes from its microstructure. When you heat up a piece of steel, you anneal it; this means that the grain size increases dramatically as the microstructure "smoothes out" internally via atomic diffusion. After all, the recrystallization temperature of iron is only 450 degrees C.

Large grain sizes = loss of strength; this is absolutely basic materials science. And that is why we have a measured phenomenon known as "creep" for metals, where they start to slowly deform at high temperatures. Perhaps this chart will help illuminate matters:

Code: Select all

Metal                             Temperature (Celsius)
-------------------------------------------------------
Aluminum                                   200
Titanium                                   325
Low-alloy steels                           375
High-temp steels                           550
Nickel and cobalt superalloys              650
Refractories (eg- tungsten)             1000-1550

Ref: The Science and Engineering of Materials, 2nd Edition- Donald Askeland, 1989.

As you can see, a typical low-alloy steel (which structural steels generally are) starts to suffer degradation of its material properties around 375 degrees Celsius, which works out to roughly 700 degrees Farenheit.

Now, it should be noted that this doesn't mean it suddenly goes soft; it just starts to soften from its original state. A piece of ductile cast iron subjected to 6 kpsi stress and 500 degrees C might creep so slowly that it takes a thousand years to fail, but as you ramp up the temperature, the creep rate rises accordingly.

If the temperature is really high, the steel softens to such a degree that it's not really "creep" so much as rapid failure, but the above chart should help give some idea of when this phenomenon starts. If the temperature was twice as high as the onset of creep, that would have some obviously negative implications on the survivability of the structure.

In any case, any mechanical argument regarding the strength of steel under high temperatures which fails to account for creep or grain growth is either ignorant or dishonest.

[frigidmagi]

There is no chance of it being a controlled demo shoot. C4 cuts through steel, it doesn't cause heat damage or blow it into chunks, it cuts.

Everyone in my unit (combat engineers) watched those tapes until our eyes bled. The Towers collasped due to the jets and nothing else. Fuck think of the speed those jets were going and add in the likey weight...

The Towers were not designed with that in mind.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

There is no chance of it being a controlled demo shoot. C4 cuts through steel, it doesn't cause heat damage or blow it into chunks, it cuts.

Everyone in my unit (combat engineers) watched those tapes until our eyes bled. The Towers collasped due to the jets and nothing else. Fuck think of the speed those jets were going and add in the likey weight...

The Towers were not designed with that in mind.

You're wrong. They were actually designed to survive a direct hit from commerical Jet liners. If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

[frigidmagi]

If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

Where you hear that?

[aerius]

You're wrong. They were actually designed to survive a direct hit from commerical Jet liners. If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

Your memory serves you wrong, the plane was a 707 which was the biggest plane at the time. However, that's for a plane that's lightly loaded with fuel at typical approach speeds, not a fully fueled plane being flown full speed into the towers. No one could've anticipated and planned for what happened on 9/11.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Your memory serves you wrong, the plane was a 707 which was the biggest plane at the time. However, that's for a plane that's lightly loaded with fuel at typical approach speeds, not a fully fueled plane being flown full speed into the towers. No one could've anticipated and planned for what happened on 9/11.

That is correct. It [the towers] was also designed to deal with the fuel fires with asbestos insulation--which not installed due to changing regulations. The replacement, at that time (alternative insulations have gotten better since then) was inferior to asbestos.

[Stormbringer]

You're wrong. They were actually designed to survive a direct hit from commerical Jet liners. If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

An accidental (read: not a full speed kamikaze dive) collision from a much lighter aircraft was a possibility considered. And even then it's ability to survive such a hit was questionable.

[Darth Lucifer]

That is correct. It [the towers] was also designed to deal with the fuel fires with asbestos insulation--which not installed due to changing regulations. The replacement, at that time (alternative insulations have gotten better since then) was inferior to asbestos.

It was called Cafco, I think.

[RedImperator]

You're wrong. They were actually designed to survive a direct hit from commerical Jet liners. If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

Commercial jetliners from 30 years ago. They were designed for a 737 coming into Laguardia or Kennedy drifting off course, not a fully fuelled 767 at 600 miles per hour.

[Frank Hipper]

You're wrong. They were actually designed to survive a direct hit from commerical Jet liners. If memory serves, I think they were designed to take a hit from a 757 or something like that.

Commercial jetliners from 30 years ago. They were designed for a 737 coming into Laguardia or Kennedy drifting off course, not a fully fuelled 767 at 600 miles per hour.

Not to nitpick, but allow me to nitpick.
They were designed to take a hit from a 707, that was the largest airliner in service then.

[Darth Wong]

You know, the guy does make one interesting point:

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours.

Unfortunately, it costs $43.00 to buy the ASTM E119 standards documentation in order to verify this statement and examine it in context. However, if true (and not being taken seriously out of context), it does suggest that the steel was of a type sufficient to withstand 2000F for long enough to survive that particular fire without loss of structural integrity. That is not necessarily surprising on the surface, since structural steel is often low-strength material rather than the kind of high-strength alloy whose strength can decrease precipitously upon annealing. However, it would help to know more about the specifications of ASTM E119.

[Howedar]

My dad might be able to dig that up if you're really that curious. I don't know as to just how lengthy ASTM E119 is, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a copy on-site.