Community Police & Fire

Sept. 11 attack still killing firefighters, chief says on 25th anniversary of tragedy

The most devastating number associated with Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks isn’t 343. That’s how many firefighters died that day. 

It isn’t 25, which reflects the quarter-century since the attacks.

It’s 600.

At a ceremony Friday honoring the memory of those lost during the attack, Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One Chief Dennis Doan noted that more than 600 firefighters have died since the attack due to their service at Ground Zero. A study by the Centers for Disease Control’s World Trade Center Health Program measured the scale of the continuing tragedy.

“The ones who dug, the ones who came back the next week, the next month,” Doan said. They “went home and got sick slowly and quietly, with nobody marching for them at all.

“For 25 years I’ve said, ‘Never forget,’ as if I were talking about something behind us. I was wrong. It’s not past tense. Somebody is being buried this month.” 

Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One Chief Dennis Doan speaks during a ceremony marking 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks on Friday at fire district headquarters on Bujacich Road. Photo by Vince Dice

25 years since attack

Fire service and law enforcement leaders gathered on Sept. 11, 2026, at Gig Harbor Fire’s Bujacich Road headquarters to honor the fallen. For those who were alive on 9/11, it can be hard to believe that it’s been 25 years. 

Doan recalled the first anniversary of the attacks, when he attended a ceremony in New York City. He was a Boise (Idaho) Fire Department captain and president of the Professional Firefighters of Idaho at the time. 

“This morning, I realized that some of the people who stood with us at that first ceremony are not here anymore,” he said. “And some of you standing here in uniform this morning had not even been born on September 11th, 2001. Twenty-five years is how long it takes for a memory to become history.” 

For many of those who responded to the Trade Center 25 years ago, it’s neither history nor a memory. It’s an ongoing health crisis. 

Fire service and law enforcement leaders stand at attention while colleagues raise a U.S. flag on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. Photo by Vince Dice

Continuing health hazard

Everyone near Ground Zero was exposed to smoke, toxic gases and chemicals, and debris after the Twin Towers collapsed. Firefighters and others who spent long periods of time at Ground Zero suffer high rates of cancer, aerodigestive disorders like asthma chronic bronchitis, mental illness and more. 

No group of people was more at risk than those who ran into the buildings while they burned, then returned to sift through the wreckage. 

“We never forget that they made a living standing for something important,” Doan said. “That the legend of each of those we honor today is that of a true life worth living.  

“We must never forget what our brothers and sisters accomplished, the other lives they touched and the lives they changed. … They were the epitome of humanity when it came to the job that they did each and every day.” 

A firefighter tolls a bell in honor of fire service members who died during and after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Photo by Vince Dice