Intumescent Paint

Unlike the WTC Towers, the exposed steel on the back of the new theater on Southbridge Street will have a few coatings of intumescent paint, according to this blurb in the paper today.

Intumescent paint...

This certainly sounds like a man's product, invented by men, given a manly name, and applied by men. Only by being intumescent can the paint protect the exposed steel from damage by fire.

Damage by fire?

If fire threatens to deform or melt the steel, the intumescent paint will morph into an engorged mass of thick foam...

It's a technological idea whose time has come.

I've thought long and hard about this... and I still can't imagine a scenario wherein a fire hot enough to deform steel on the outside of the new theater could be made to happen.