{"id":460595,"date":"2026-09-11T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460595\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:28:11","slug":"san-francisco-fire-chief-reflects-on-25-years-since-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460595\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Fire Chief Reflects on 25 Years Since 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dean Crispen was part of the relief efforts at Ground Zero. He said the attacks have changed the way he thinks about emergency preparedness.<\/p>\n

Alexander Gonzalez<\/a>Brian Watt<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen at KQED in San Francisco on Sept. 10, 2026. Crispen was part of a group of San Francisco first responders who traveled to New York City as part of 9\/11 relief efforts.
\n\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Dean Crispen, chief of San Francisco\u2019s Fire Department<\/a>, said the smell of gas lingers in his mind 25 years after the 9\/11<\/a> attacks on the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy most pungent memory of the incident is the smell. I\u2019ll never forget that smell,\u201d Crispen said, as he recalled joining the relief efforts at Ground Zero with a group of San Francisco firefighters.<\/p>\n

Since then, the attention paid to first responders, especially their well-being, has come into focus. This week, New York City officials released <\/a>previously sealed records documenting air quality concerns after 9\/11.<\/p>\n

Crispen, whose team spent almost a week on the \u201cpile\u201d \u2014 the massive heap of scrap metal at Ground Zero \u2014 said several of the folks who went with him can\u2019t attend one of\u00a0San Francisco\u2019s 9\/11 memorials on Friday because of lung issues and other health problems.<\/p>\n

\"\"People walk past One World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 10, 2026, in New York City, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.\u00a0(Angela Weiss\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue with that type of work is you can\u2019t really wear a self-contained breathing apparatus when you\u2019re working for 10 or 12 hours,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

First responders, veterans groups and many organizations around the country mark 9\/11 annually, and this year, the 25th anniversary of the attacks, several remembrances are scheduled to take place Friday across the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In San Francisco, Crispen is among the officials attending a veteran-led ceremony<\/a> in the Presidio honoring the 343 FDNY firefighters and eight EMS providers who died on 9\/11.\u00a0<\/p>\n

South Bay Rep. Sam Liccardo\u2019s office has also planned a military flyover for Los Gatos High School to recognize alumni Mark Bingham and Todd Beamer, who died during a passenger revolt<\/a> against the hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t sure we were accepted there, but we received nothing but positive feedback saying, \u2018Come here as soon as you can. Bring your turnouts and your dress uniform.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

At first we were taken aback by what the dress uniform piece was. We ended up using that quite a bit because we were the color guard for many of the funerals there \u2014 which was incredibly impactful.<\/p>\n

\nI would not have thought that the scope of your work would have included attending funerals and needing your dress uniforms.\n<\/p>\n

That was a bit of a surprise to us. Although, maybe it shouldn\u2019t have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We reported to the pile. We were assigned to a battalion chief of the FDNY who put us to work. Essentially just clearing debris, literally with 5-gallon buckets and trying to find either fallen firefighters or find some apparatus that were buried or find victims. And that was what we did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We were given very clear instructions of the dangers. There were flare-ups, some gas leaks. There was potential for additional collapse. But FDNY members took great care of us, and I\u2019m so appreciative.<\/p>\n

\"\"A man\u2019s shadow is cast on a flag in 2001 at a 9\/11 victims\u2019 memorial near the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.\u00a0(Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\nHave you kept in touch with colleagues or other folks affected by the attacks?\n<\/p>\n

Most of the folks that we connected with there are retired, and some of them have passed away. One thing I remember very clearly was the battalion chief telling us, \u2018If you find a firefighter, we pull them out.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t happen to us, but it did happen to another group, where they stopped the whole operation. They found somebody, and everybody stopped. We had a ceremonious extraction of the victim, and we all saluted. It was probably the most emotional thing I\u2019ve been through in my life.<\/p>\n

\nWhat\u2019s been going through your mind here 25 years later?\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s given us a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood that I think nobody in the fire department felt before. Fire departments are proud of their individual traditions and customs, and we take a lot of pride in the things we do here in San Francisco that we do very well because they\u2019re very San Francisco-based.<\/p>\n

But 9\/11 put a punctuation mark on the collective sacrifice that is made by firefighters, paramedics and EMTs throughout the country. We\u2019re all in this together, and we need to be supportive of each other.<\/p>\n

As the chief of a major urban fire department, my thought now has clearly changed into how we can use these events as a fulcrum to make our department more prepared for disaster, large-scale incidents \u2014 things that were all wrapped up in the 9\/11 incident. Obviously, we\u2019re in earthquake country, so we know that that\u2019s coming and making sure we\u2019re the best version of ourselves when it does happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Crispen was part of the relief efforts at Ground Zero. He said the attacks have changed the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-460595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}