On the somber 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Vancouver firefighter Keith Stewart remembers not only the terrible loss of life—but the extraordinary efforts of those who stepped up to help in the face of tragedy. Stewart, now the deputy chief of Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, was finishing up a night shift on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when word began to spread that there had been an attack on the World Trade Centre in New York City. “The oncoming shift was arriving at the fire hall, and as they were coming in they were asking if we knew what was going on,” Stewart recalled Friday. “And we didn’t know.” The group of 16 firefighters turned on the TV and together watched the horrifying news unfold. “Usually in the fire halls in the morning, when one person arrives one person can leave,” Stewart said. “This morning, everybody stayed.” It took 56 minutes for the first tower to collapse after being struck by a hijacked passenger plane. Stewart and his fellow firefighters saw it happen in real time, and immediately knew many first responders would be among the deceased. “When the first tower collapsed, you could hear all the sirens in the background—and all of a sudden the sirens were gone,” he said. “Every firefighter, I’m sure across North America, wanted to help somehow.” Locally, crews decided they would help by doing a “boot drive,” collecting cash donations in fire boots at various locations across Vancouver to support the families of fallen New York firefighters. The effort was held one month to the day after the tragedy, advertised in newspapers and on the radio. The response was overwhelming. “We were at gas stations, we were in malls, we were on the side of the road—and we were collecting money like never before,” Stewart said. “The citizens of Vancouver were so good, dropping $5s, $10s, $20s, $50s, $100s.” Over the course of 12 hours, the boots kept filling up and having to be dumped out, Stewart said. When firefighters were ready to count the cash at a local credit union, they needed an armed police escort. They had raised a staggering $600,000. Stewart was among the members who then flew out to deliver a cheque to the New York City Fire Department. “The first thing they did was take us to Ground Zero,” he recalled. “The gravity of seeing that, and the massive size of the vacant lot where the Twin Towers used to be, it was emotional.” The solidarity shown between the two departments is how local crews ended up in possession of a powerful reminder of the tragedy—a Vancouver Fire Rescue T-shirt recovered from the rubble, believed to have been worn by a first responder killed in the attacks. “Firefighter groups go out travelling, it’s quite common to take patches or T-shirts to exchange. There’s quite a brotherhood and sisterhood,” Stewart said. “We have respect for each other, so it’s not uncommon to wear someone else’s shirt to work.” New York firefighters decided that particular shirt belonged back in Vancouver, and reached out to the local union to arrange its transport. Looking back on that fraught time, Stewart said he hopes people remember to come together in times of tragedy. “Everyone was trying to help, everyone was there for each other,” he said.
