>> The only thing they seemed to have in common were relatively
>> small and manageable fires, as indicated by the work of
>> firefighters right up to the moment of collapse.
Ultimately this is where everything I've read so far loses me (and I suspect many others): the idea that a 'normal person' can just look at the situation and just, well, see how wrong it is. Except there are a lot of us not-so-normal people out there, and we smell garbage from way off, and we read a lot, and we already know a lot about things like how fire fighters work.
And how fire fighters die.
Please read the FDNY lessons-learned report and stop listening to people who, well, just think you ought to see how wrong it is. If they are this wrong about stuff we know has absolutely nothing to do with any real or imagined conspiracy (please don't tell me that FDNY lost 343 members as part of the conspiracy) how can we even begin to think seriously about their other claims?
The work of FDNY "right up to the moment of collapse" had absolutely nothing to do with the size of the fire. It had everything to do with significant failures of communications; command & control; and coordination.
At the very least, read the executive summary.
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/fdny/pdf/mck_report/executive_summary.pdf