Captain Chris Boyle
Engine 94 - 18 years
Boyle: ...on the north and east side of 7 it didn***8217;t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn***8217;t look good.
Firehouse: When you looked at the south side, how close were you to the base of that side?
Boyle: I was standing right next to the building, probably right next to it.
Firehouse: When you had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?
Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it. And so after Visconti came down and said nobody goes in 7, we said all right, we***8217;ll head back to the command post. We lost touch with him. I never saw him again that day.
Firehouse.com's 9-11 Coverage: News 9/9/02 - WTC: This Is Their Story
..Captain Varriale told Chief Coloe and myself that 7 World Trade Center was badly damaged on the south side and definitely in danger of collapse. Chief Coloe said we were going to evacuate the collapse zone around 7 World Trade Center, which we did.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110462.PDF
Deputy Chief Peter Hayden
Division 1 - 33 years
...also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o***8217;clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o***8217;clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.
Firehouse: Was there heavy fire in there right away?
Hayden: No, not right away, and that***8217;s probably why it stood for so long because it took a while for that fire to develop. It was a heavy body of fire in there and then we didn***8217;t make any attempt to fight it. That was just one of those wars we were just going to lose. We were concerned about the collapse of a 47-story building there. We were worried about additional collapse there of what was remaining standing of the towers and the Marriott, so we started pulling the people back after a couple of hours of surface removal and searches along the surface of the debris. We started to pull guys back because we were concerned for their safety.
Firehouse.com's 9-11 Coverage: News 9/9/02 - WTC: This Is Their Story