How does NIST know what the temperatures were & how do they know the fires traveled the way they did?
It would probably "jeopardize public safety" to do much more than create a simulation of "collapse by fire" that matched the visual evidence of the day:
From NIST's apparent perspective, even if you have to imagine or simulate seeing huge steel beams collapsing or "buckling" relatively symmetrically behind the facade due to burning office furniture and so forth, ultimately you would have to imagine or simulate things to the point of coming to the correct conclusion that matched the official worldview for now.
That's why as far as NIST goes you'll probably be left with the simulation of "temperatures" sufficient to explain any of the videos* of the day in terms of the unprecedented event of a collapse by fire and so forth. Personally, I'd like to see them set up a fire made out of office furniture and so forth and "buckle" a real thick steel beam with it or cause it to expand while leaving concrete floors the same, etc. But that's probably just me, as many people seem to be happy with computer simulations.
I'm sure they did their best to make their imaginations and simulations work no matter what... because they already knew the type of conclusion that they had to come to for the sake of public safety, if not their own safety too. Like most "investigative journalists" in the corporate media, it's actually hard to imagine them coming to any other conclusion than the one that they simulated and so forth even if 911 really was an outside/inside job of a faction of collaborators and a foreign intelligence service. (Although, would it really be foreign if people were dual citizens?) Even if it really was, how would they be able to overcome their personal epistemic inertia and numerous other psychological "compartments" bound to create more inertia to the point of beginning to investigate and look for evidence or ultimately, knowing that it was a joint operation like Iran Contra? After all, who would be the imaginary spokesman and investigator for the evidence that didn't fit the theory of office fires and so forth that they were apparently trying to make work for the sake of public safety? And if they hadn't already naturally formed a herd mentality against "truthers" that was pretty much totally "locked in"... how would they as truth seekers supposedly go about publicizing any anomalous evidence "found" within their simulations? Although I suspect that if they had "found" anything inconsistent with the official worldview that way, then more people would become aware of the distinction between a simulation based on the evidence and actual physical or empirical evidence. And with respect to the fires, wouldn't it have been helpful to set more beams aside so that their "buckling" could be entered into the simulation and checked against it? If the simulation was saying that a beam had only buckled so far, yet the actual beam looked more like a pretzel... then what? Would alternative theories like that of Dr. Judy Wood even be allowed to enter the equation based on the evidence? How would that or anything other than the official worldview be possible? Government scientists "found" evidence that verified the only theory they were allowed to look for and only tried to falsify other theories to the extent that the public brought them up. Surprise.
Imagine... would any of the strongest investigators in the official tribe itself more interested in the truth than their jobs/tribes supposedly go out and make friends with truther/kook/crackpot tribes or even "jeopardize public safety" by leaking evidence to them? Note that it's usually pretty easy to get people to "herd" and go into a sort of psychological lock down* mode through provocation too, a well known tactic of controlling the flow of information among the intelligence services that serve our oligarchs.
In any event... perhaps all they really needed in the intricate equations that produced their simulations and so forth was this: "And then, a miracle occurred." Because then whatever they had to enter into the equations that produced their simulations, their nation would have been safe and they could stick with their herd/friends instead of apparently "jeopardizing public safety." (The only problem with that being, if the terrorist faction responsible for the event was actually still at large... then that might "jeopardize public safety" more than the imaginary panic that would be created by widespread knowledge of the fact that even the simulation of an investigation actually didn't work out all that well.)
*Kind of ironic, I was going to self-censor something in this thread due to tribalism or feelings probably based on tribal considerations.
But then I changed my mind. Yet I reserve the right to change it back again too.