Hey guys, not a pilot, but I'm a resident of Birmingham and thought I'd throw in some details. The NTSB news conference was just on and they said that the engines had evidence of ingesting trees and dirt and there was no evidence of a pre-impact fire in the engines.
Also, if you watch the video on this CNN article, they show a piece of wreckage in the yard of the house at the end of the field where they clipped the trees. It's a pretty substantial piece of aluminum, so it looks like they were pretty deep in the trees when they clipped them.
UPS plane crash: Data recorders recovered - CNN.com
Anyway, I'm not nearly close enough to qualified to opine on what happened, but I find this discussion immensely interesting and as someone who has flown in and out of Birmingham a lot (always been RWY 24, I've never had a flight land on 18) I'm really interested in knowing if airport factors were involved here.