“Ashification” is another one of those words, like “spalling,” that doesn’t enter the conversation below 1,000°F or so, but that, in a word, is what happened. Many residents were perplexed by how a large, sturdy structure that had once housed them, their families, their cars, and all their possessions could be reduced to a pile of ash and scrap metal that would fit in the back of a pickup. Even forensic fire investigators were puzzled by the absence of normally fireproof objects like toilets and sinks. They weren’t there, because they had vaporized.
