1: Hydrocarbon fire does not melt steel.
2: Freeways are jacketed and bound to their pillars using Re-bar cemented into Asphalt
3: Asphalt is flammable.
The steel did not melt, The Asphault connecting the freeway to the re-bar, which connects to the support pillar melted, causing collapse.
The steel did not melt,..Many are confusing MELTING with "losing tensile strength."
These guys, for instance, got it wrong AND right -- in the same article!From www.mercurynews.com:
...The crash sparked a series of explosions on the lower portion of the ramp where Mosqueda was driving from westbound Interstate 80 to southbound Interstate 880. The intense heat melted the steel screws on the upper deck of the ramp, which was built in the 1950s.The freeway collapsed more or less for the same reasons that the World Trade Center towers did on Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The steel supports were baked at, and probably beyond, 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which steel turns to rubber, said Astaneh, who studied the WTC collapse for the National Science Foundation and also studied the MacArthur Maze after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
"When steel gets that warm, it loses its strength and can0not carry its load any more," he said...