[Grig]

10 seconds of searing heat making your skin bubble would change your attitude immediately.

That may be true, but I would have to actually be burning to get to that point.

From the pictures I saw, the jumpers didn't look the least bit singed. I kinda think anyone close enough to be in the midst of the fire would have been killed from the initial impact and explosion. I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me that those who jumped did so because they were afraid of becoming burned and gave up looking for a way to survive/escape rather than jumping because they were actually burning.

[Lazamataz]

From the pictures I saw, the jumpers didn't look the least bit singed.

Some yes, some no. One picture looked like the mans shirt had been burnt into his (now very red) arms. And from the distance we were at, you cannot really tell the 1st and 2nd degree burns that were certainly present.

[csvset]

I would have to actually be burning to get to that point

You might Think that is what you would want to do.

The air would have been super heated, the smoke, choking and toxic. You wouldn't have had much of a choice. If you hadn't of jumped, you would have died in a matter of seconds anyways.

[homeschool mama]

One never knows how they'll truly respond in such a serious situation...until the situation presents itself.

You seem to be second guessing the people who jumped, assuming they're cowards for not fighting hard enough to get out alive. I consider your comments disrespectful to the victims and their families.

[sweetliberty]

I woke up in the middle of the night once and the building I lived in was in flames. My bedroom was filled with smoke. It was impossible to take a breath. I opened the window next to my bed, and could still not breathe. In that moment, there is no thought involved. Instinct takes over. The only thing that mattered was getting a breath.

[Dan Day]

That may be true, but I would have to actually be burning to get to that point. From the pictures I saw, the jumpers didn't look the least bit singed.

Warning, graphic description follows.

Have you ever accidentally splashed boiling water (212 degrees) on yourself, or touched with your bare skin the pan you were pulling out of a 350 degree oven?

That's intense, unbearable pain for the few moments it takes to remove your hand from the searing pan, or run cold water over the splash site, and it's *far* less than the heat it takes to actually "singe" anything.

Now imagine that pain over your entire body, unending, like leaving your face pressed up against the inside of a hot oven, as hot air at several hundred degrees rising from the fires blows through the floor you're on and/or out the broken window you're clinging to.

I'd jump too. And I wouldn't have any reason to wait until flames were actually licking my body.

[Timesink]

That may be true, but I would have to actually be burning to get to that point.

Judging from some of the pictures and video I saw, for many (if not all) of those people, the fire and heat was already right up against them. (Remember, that 1000-degree-plus heat was being pulled towards those open windows, flames or not.) Besides, you don't break open a window and climb outside a ledgeless facade 900 feet into the air unless you are already facing imminent death. Those poor people were already into full panic mode.

[InvisibleChurch]

another reason for those people jumping might have to do with toxic fumes released from materials in the furniture and other surroundings