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The source of the heat was the fire, not the beams. In order for the beams to be 1,500F, the fire needs to be at least that hot consistently enough for the heat to be transfered across the system of steel beams. Have you ever opened your stove at 500F? It's really hot. So hot that one would have difficulty breathing if one stuck his head too close to the open stove. Imagine that stove was 100,000 square feet, was over 3 times as hot as that 500F stove, and the only real opening was a hole about the size of a plane and was pretty far from any entrance/exit. Wouldn't you guess that:
1) the heat inside the building would make it impossible for a human to make it from the stairs or the elevator to the opening and
2) most of the heat and exhaust from the flames would be pouring out of the opening?
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