The fire began on the 11th floor and spread to floors 9 through 14. The cause was undetermined, but seemed to start under a desk in the 11th floor record-storage room of B.F. Goodrich.

The fire reinvigorated calls for the towers to install fire-suppressing sprinkler systems, which would be required under New York law but were not installed during construction since the WTC was a Port Authority building and technically exists outside the jurisdiction of the New York state fire code.

The original World Trade Center would go on to be attacked in a terrorist bombing in February 1993 and the two towers were completely destroyed in the September 11th attacks.