It doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, but it burns hot enough to weaken steel...
Structural steel looses 50% of it tensil strength at 650 dgrees F.
A carbon fire bures at 850 degrees F.
The math is simple.
My credentials, if it matters, if you care...
Welder/Fabricator, near twenty years of experience, I have built elevators for one of North Americas largest manufacturers of elevators, I have built load bearing structures, in fact I did it so well I own my own welding fabricating company, I'm Six Nations, I have cousnins that worked on both the building of and clean up of the WTC as well as hundreds of other structures and bridges with Mowhawk High Steel.
Not that, that proves I'm right or wrong, but it does give me a leg up on most CT"s.
btw, I still haven't seen any evidence of this molten pool of metal, except for on CT sites. Do you have a site that isn't a CT site, complete with an analysys and pictures?