At this year's NFPA 2024 Conference in Orlando, Florida, the PAPA team hosted a WTC 7 evidence booth where thousands of firefighters and fire protection engineers were presented with the facts and the critical need to re-investigate the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7.
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The PAPA Team educated NFPA convention attendees about the 7-second collapse of the
Solomon Brothers Building -- and it's deep implications for the fire protection industry.
​Our honored guests this year included four firefighters:
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- Retired Seattle Fire Department Captain Raul Angulo, author of the book on fighting fires in buildings - Engine Company Fireground Operations, 4th edition, written in partnership with the NFPA and Jones & Bartlett Learning;
- Retired UK Firefighter Paul Kayley;
- Retired Kansas City Fire Captain Tony Robbins;
- Retired Seattle Firefighter Erik Lawyer, founder of Protecting All Protectors Alliance.
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We also brought back Architect Richard Gage, AIA, founder and former CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
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Captain Angulo had previously been asked why the high-rise fireground operations strategy had not changed in the wake of the Salomon Brothers (WTC 7) building collapse. This began a conversation about the NIST investigation, and the complete absence of strategy changes after the first ever global collapse of a Type 1 high-rise building that was attributed to fire.​​​​​​​​
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This created the blueprint of our critically important mission to educate the industry about the huge discrepancy between NIST claiming that WTC 7 "collapsed by fire" versus the reality of current high-rise firefighting strategies which involve setting up forward operating centers 2 floors below the fire and directing occupants above the fire to defend-in-place until the firefighters complete their firefighting operations.
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PAPA Team Orlando: Richard & Gail Gage, Diana Castillo, Tony Robbins, Erik Lawyer, Paul Kayley, Raul & Jan Angulo, Gene Laratonda
This year, we were encouraged by the NFPA to speak in the Expo Theater where we gave a 30-minute presentation on the unprecedented collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. It was the most highly attended presentation on the Expo Floor during the 3-day convention.
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We presented the startling results of the independent study from UAF-Fairbanks, A Structural Re-evaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7 led by the University of Alaska's former Chair of the Structural Engineering Department, Prof. Leroy Hulsey, one of the top forensic structural engineers in the country. The study's conclusion leaves no doubt that WTC 7 was not brought down by fire, as NIST claims, but by "the near-simultaneous failure of all of the columns in the building."
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During our successful exhibition, we added 158 professional connections to the 500 who had already signed up for our information at the Boston and Las Vegas NFPA Conventions, held in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Most importantly, we have now been invited to submit articles to the top two fire protection journals in the country, and are currently in conversation with top-level NFPA-affiliated members who have shown an interest in the anomalies of the Building 7 collapse and who very much care about the future of fire investigations.
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We need your support with our non for profit mission. Please donate today to ensure that we can secure a booth for the 2025 NFPA convention (back to Las Vegas!). If we all chip in $20 or $100 then we can fly in the experts of our esteemed PAPA Team again next year!
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The Doumentary by Firefighters for Firefighters
I want to thank you for visiting the Protecting All Protectors Alliance (PAPA) booth at the recent NFPA conference. I also want to congratulate you for taking the first step in asking important questions about how this unprecedented collapse happened to the Solomon Brother’s building (WTC 7).
In my research on highrise building fires for my book, Engine Company Fireground Operations 4 th Edition, published by Jones and Bartlett Learning, in conjunction with NFPA, I was surprised to learn that not a single Type I construction highrise building in the USA, or around the world for that matter, has collapsed due to fire – despite the fact that many of these fires were quite spectacular. Because significant highrise fires are rare, those that have already occurred still remain our primary case studies. Yet after 20 years, the complete global collapse at freefall acceleration of WTC 7 continues to be unknown, overlooked, or even ignored by many fire service professionals. This fire, compared to the others, was anything but spectacular. On any other date, this building collapse would have received national attention, and would become an exclusive case study that would be studied extensively for years to come.
When you consider the fire load inside WTC 7, primarily office furnishings, it is difficult to believe that such a fire load could release the amount of thermal energy required to weaken a single structural column that would completely collapse such a building. Type I construction, the strongest of the five classes, is designed to withstand the common office fire load. In other words, the fuel should be consumed before structural components are compromised. Yet, per their own report, that is what the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wants us to believe.
Two important documents now exist that challenge the NIST report conclusion and the narrative on WTC 7. The 2020 study out of the University of Alaska by Professor J. Leroy Hulsey – A Structural Reevaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7, and the new 2021 NFPA Standard 1700, Guide for Structural Fire Fighting. The Hulsey conclusion does not attribute the collapse of WTC 7 to a single column failure due to fire involvement, and NFPA 1700, Chapter 12 on Highrise Fires implies that all operations, including sheltering or protecting occupants in place, occur during interior operations. There is no mention of “fire-induced progressive collapse” - as NIST claims is a new phenomenon, nor any mention or warning of the potential of structural collapse when fighting fires in highrise buildings. This is why this topic finally needs to be addressed.
As you can see, there are major discrepancies in the information that firefighters rely on to be truthful and accurate. Both firefighter and civilian lives depend on the veracity of information that is published by such organizations. As an author of a textbook that is providing guidance for the dangerous assignments of interior offensive attack and interior search and rescue of trapped occupants, I need my readers to trust what I am saying is true. It is a matter of personal integrity and trust. Therefore, I must rely on the information I’m getting from architects, building and fire protection engineers, and professional organizations like Underwriters Laboratories (UL), NFPA, USFA, NFA, NIOSH, and NIST are also telling me the truth. We must rely on physical science, not political science, lest we violate the public trust and endanger the lives of civilians and firefighters.
I encourage you to watch Calling Out Bravo 7, 2020 edition on the PAPA website. Many of your questions, as were mine, were answered after watching this excellent documentary.
My best to all of you as we go forward to establish the truth.
Raul Angulo
Captain Emeritus, Ladder Company 6
Seattle Fire Department (Retired)
Letter from Capt. Raul A. Angulo
Raul A. Angulo retired from the Seattle (WA) Fire Dept. with over 37 years of honorable service and is Captain Emeritus of Ladder Co. 6. He is an international author and instructor and serves as a member of the editorial advisory board for Fire Apparatus and Emergency Equipment magazine. He has been teaching at FDIC International since 1996 and currently presents the popular workshop, Drills You’re Not Going to Find in the Book.