I'm late to the conversation, as I first skimmed through the thread today. It is indeed thought provoking conversation, one that boils down to how swiftly crews should react to a potential fire. One need only study BA 2276 to get your answer. It's a useful to consider this near-disaster and actual triumph in the context of this conversation. Hard to believe that it's been almost eight years since the B-777-200ER had a catastrophic engine failure on the T/O roll at KLAS. A timely high speed abort, zero hesitation evac and pronto ARFF response transpired into a good day for all involved, versus a diametrically opposed potential outcome. I said high speed abort because many random online articles stated 12x mph, but I see the NTSB it pegged at 77 knots - doesn't matter, close enough to high speed for me. To acquaint yourself and/or re-familiarize, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...ys_Flight_2276. Many other more detailed sources available on the Net, of course. In the NTSB report, the crew (Captain mainly) is critiqued for calling for the evacuation before consulting the proper checklist. This lead to the unaffected engine remaining operational for longer than it should have, and messing up escape slides (43 secs from the evac order until the engine was shutdown) - the point being that the evac could have gone more swiftly if escape paths were not impeded by crew error. Nonetheless, the crew got things moving in a hurry and everyone survived.

Key points: after running the engine failure/fire checklist, indication of fire warning ceased; relief pilot entered cabin for a visual check and determined fire was "on." Captain was firm on getting people off despite of a lack of urgency from others. ARFF arrived less than two minutes after the captain's call for help and the evac was accomplished 2:32 after initial indication of engine failure. From standing up the throttles to onset of chaos, to all persons free and clear of the aircraft took less than five minutes. Of course it helped that the plane was around two thirds passenger capacity.

Speculative thoughts from me: a few more seconds rolling down the runway, whether it had been a later onset of engine failure or slow crew response time, could have lead to the largest single hull loss of life and property in the history of aviation. The local newspaper had an article that indicated a wing spar burn through and fire penetration across the cabin would have occurred within the time it would take to return for emergency landing, likely dropping the 777 into a densely populated Las Vegas residential neighborhood, or worse, the Strip. Also, it's quite possible that repair of the aircraft was a political stunt, mostly in favor of Boeing. In 2015, our own RA stated that used 777 values were about $10M, and proved it by purchasing a B-777-200 for $7.7M. I don't know the specs of what Delta purchased, but it couldn't have been too far away from the 17 year-old, 72,000 hour/10,600 cycle -200ER that BA repaired. Boeing stock reacted negatively to this new "valuation bar, " leading me to think scrapping the subject 777 was not a good option for parties outside of BA. Arguably, the repair cost approached or exceeded the aircraft's market value. The tragedy narrow-averted angle was never openly discussed, as far as I can tell. Was Lloyds of London "convinced" this was a viable repair, or did some other party contribute to the repair fund? IDK, but it's fun to think about.

There are many post-mortem fire scenarios worthy of study. Saudia 163, Air Canada 797 and N711Y (Ricky Nelson) are a few of the case studies my training has delved into over the years. My takeaway from it all is 1) act swiftly and deliberately when faced with the threat of fire, and
2) seek multiple forms of verification before assuming all is good .... when in doubt, get out!