Firefighters From Fairfax County Station 10 Among First To Respond To Pentagon Attack

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Fairfax County officials gathered at a fire station in Bailey’s Crossroads Saturday afternoon to remember the lives lost at the Pentagon 20 years ago and honor first responders from the county.

Firefighters from the Bailey’s Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department, or Station 10, were among the first Fairfax County public safety personnel to arrive at the Pentagon soon after a hijacked airplane crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Jeffrey McKay, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, told the people assembled inside Station 10 for the ceremony.

Firefighters from the station, just off Columbia Pike, headed east on the highway for about five miles before arriving at the Pentagon, which was on fire after hijackers had crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the building.

All 59 people on the American Airlines flight died, and 125 people inside the southwest portion of the Pentagon were killed.

Thirty-five members of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department who responded to the Pentagon on 9/11 still work for the agency 20 years later. Twenty officers from the Fairfax County Police Department who served on 9/11 are still with the department.

In New York City, a total of 343 firefighters and paramedics and 72 law enforcement officers died in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center towers.

Along with McKay, Fairfax County District Supervisor Penny Gross, U.S. Reps. Don Beyer (D-8th) and Gerry Connolly (D-11th), Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis, and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Chief John Butler spoke at the ceremony to mark 20 years since the attacks.

Butler emphasized in his remarks how closely the jurisdictions in Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland work together with federal agencies on public safety and other issues. On 9/11, officials from across Fairfax and Arlington counties worked closely with federal and other local partners to respond to the attack on the Pentagon, he recalled.

"There’s no region in the world that does regionalization like we do,” Butler said. “Boundaries, borders and lines get blurred and crossed daily. And we're real proud of that."

The Fairfax Urban Search and Rescue Team, which recently responded to the earthquake in Haiti and the condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, worked in the rubble of the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack and also sent a team to ground zero in New York City 20 years ago, McKay said.

At the end of the 9/11 ceremony at the Fairfax County fire station, three firefighters participated in a "last alarm" bell service, a tradition used by fire departments across the country to honor members who have died in the line of duty.

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