Erebus

September 11 · source record · paper

Collapse of the 16-Story Plasco Building in Tehran due to Fire

M. T. Ahmadi; A. A. Aghakouchak; R. Mirghaderi; S. Tahouni; S. Garivani; A. Shahmari; S. Epackachi; Fire Technology · 2020

AI-verified citationSRC-AHMADI-PLASCO-2020
identifier / locator
Fire Technology 56:769–799; DOI 10.1007/s10694-019-00903-y
url
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-019-00903-y
verification note
Springer article page fetched 2026-08-26; the date, the complete collapse, and the casualty figure quoted verbatim from the abstract. Full text not obtained.
reliability notes
  • Peer-reviewed, authored by the Iranian investigation team; the relevant point is narrow — a steel-framed high-rise suffered fire-induced total collapse — and this case does not extend it to structural similarity with any WTC building.
  • Cited here because it dates from after the 2015 and 2018 proponent literature that built its argument on fire never having caused such a collapse; that premise requires updating, which is a different thing from being refuted.

Evidence drawn from this source

Supports· moderateSEP-E018

Tehran 2017: fire-induced total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise

what the source states
"On January 19, 2017 an accidental fire, which started by an electric shorting, resulted in the complete collapse of the 16-storey Plasco Building in Tehran. Twenty-two people including sixteen firefighters were killed in that incident." The investigation summarizes "the sequence of events from the start of the fire to final collapse, almost 3.5 h later, and the inferred scenario explaining how the structure collapsed completely."
what we infer
Establishes the mechanism class — a steel-framed high-rise can suffer total fire-induced collapse — which the proponent literature's central prior denied. It does not establish structural similarity to WTC 7, and this case does not extend it that far. Its significance is chronological: the 2015 and 2018 proponent arguments were built on a pre-2017 record and require updating, which is different from being refuted.
limitations
  • A different structural system, fire load, and damage history; the comparison is at the level of mechanism class only.
  • Verified from the published abstract; the full text was not obtained.
M. T. Ahmadi (2020)AI-verified citationSEP-C003SEP-C001