'You never forget it': Grief doesn't fade for B.C. firefighters who went to New York after 9/11

Vancouver Fire Deputy Chief Keith Stewart holds a torn T-shirt found in the debris of the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack. It is believed a New York firefighter was wearing the Vancouver shirt when he died that day. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

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When he was just a rookie Vancouver firefighter in 2001, Keith Stewart desperately wanted to help the families of the more than 300 New York firefighters who died trying to save people from the burning World Trade Center towers.

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He and dozens of other Vancouver firefighters flew to New York that fall, mainly to attend funerals in dress uniform for lost colleagues they’d never met.

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A stark reality greeted them — more memorial services every day than the depleted New York Fire Department had staff to attend.

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“They were overwhelmed with funerals,” Stewart, now a deputy chief, recalled this week. “(I) went to 13 funerals in five days.”

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They were all emotional, all unforgettable. At one, a burly man wept uncontrollably while memorializing his friend.

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“I’ll never forget that, for sure. Listening to him crying, I was crying. The guys beside me are crying.”

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The memories are still sharp 25 years after airplanes hijacked by terrorists flew into the World Trade Center site, killing nearly 3,000 people — including office workers in the buildings, passengers on the planes, and first responders.

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On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Stewart was finishing a night shift at Vancouver’s No. 5 Fire Hall when he and his co-workers stood frozen by the TV, watching the terrifying event that would continue to impact the world a quarter of a century later.

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“Nobody knew what to say, nobody knew what to do, but everybody knew we wanted to do something.”

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Photos of Ground Zero taken by Vancouver firefighter Keith Stewart in November 2001.

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One month later, local firefighters stood on Vancouver street corners with fire boots to collect donations for the families of their deceased New York counterparts. The success was beyond their wildest dreams, raising $600,000 in 12 hours.

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“The citizens of Vancouver stepped up hugely,” said Stewart.

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“We made so much money that we needed to get the VPD to assist us, … shuttling money to our credit union for us so that we could count it and secure it.”

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Burnaby firefighters, in New York to attend first responder funerals, line a New York street in 2001. The firefighter looking at the camera is Miles Ritchie, who is now the Burnaby Fire Chief. Burnaby Fire Department photo

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Vancouver firefighters then started to fly to New York in waves to deliver the $600,000 and attend memorials. Stewart, who went in November 2001 at age 25, recalls one mourner explaining how he had lost every co-worker on his shift.

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“I can’t imagine going to work and losing everyone … It’s hard to fathom grieving for that many people,” he said.

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“We would just go and sit through these things during the day, and then at night we would try to process what we just saw.”

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Despite having lost so many victims, New Yorkers welcomed the Vancouver visitors with open arms: Firefighters in Harlem fed them dinner; three New York police cruisers took them to their next destination; and strangers quietly paid for their lunch at a Times Square restaurant.

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Burnaby firefighters on a New York fire truck in the fall of 2001. Kris Anderson is third from the left. Source: Burnaby Fire Department.

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Burnaby firefighter Kris Anderson also went to New York that fall with dozens of co-workers to attend funerals, a “life changing and career changing” experience that was “earth shattering and emotionally devastating for all.”