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Will, speaking to the question of heat disipation throughout the steel skeleton of the building, I think that you are misinformed about the speed at which heat will spread through a dense metal. Heat is going to travel along a steel beam the same way that sound travels through air or water. It's not an exact analogy, but it works for our purposes. Because of the density of the steel, the heat will take a while to travel. Yes, heating one part of a steel beam is going to cause the entire thing to heat, but if I am using an arc torch to cut one end of a beam, you should be able to stand on the other end of that beam 40' away in bare feet and not feel any appreciable change in temperature for several minutes.
I don't really like your applesauce analogy unless we contain it, like it would be in a building. As we dump applesauce into a container, it's going to spread out but we're pouring a continuous stream of applesauce into the container, so not only is the entire level of applesauce going to rise, but the entry point for the additional applesauce is going to be higher than the edges. If we're pouring applesauce onto a boundless plain, then I agree with what you're trying to say, but the real world dictates otherwise.
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