TheReal_ND wrote:I'm no metallurgist but I've seen powdered aluminum burn. It burns white hot. I wouldn't use it as "cladding." Zinc either wtf?
I've smelted aluminum, takes a bit over 1400F to melt, hard to do in a wood fire without arranging logs around the crucible so its basically embedded in pile of coals a while later (done it), otherwise forget it without a kiln (which I have) or a forced air fire. I'm guessing that inferno could have melted the aluminum with the air rushing up the building.
Powdered aluminum and oxygen (or typically iron oxide -rust) is thermite, which will burn like an unstoppable torch... But it takes something like the heat of a burning magnesium strip to set it off (3000F), the steel in the building would be melting at those temps (not bending/sagging, melting to liquid). You'd need easy more of a catalyst than your typical building fire temps to set that kind of reaction off, a bunch of furniture and books, etc, ain't gonna cut it.
Aluminum is very safe for that type of cladding use, and light... The insulation in between the layers maybe not.