Editor’s Note: This article stems from a special crossover episode of Police1’s Policing Matters, FireRescue1’s Better Every Shift and EMS1’s EMS One-Stop podcasts, in which hosts Jim Dudley, Aaron Zamzow and Rob Lawrence sat down with FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001. The full conversation covers Chief Esposito’s firsthand recollections of that day, the lessons that reshaped fire, EMS and law enforcement response, and his message to the next generation of first responders. Listen to the complete episode here, and read on for highlights from the discussion.
Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, 2001, FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito does not speak about “never forget” simply as an instruction to remember names, numbers or photographs. For him, remembrance carries a much greater responsibility: remember what people did, understand the decisions they made and measure ourselves against the standard they set.
Chief Esposito was a newly promoted lieutenant assigned to hazmat training on 9/11, with a rare day off. His plan had been thoroughly ordinary: drop his young son at nursery school, spend a few hours studying for the captain’s exam and continue with his day. Even after the first aircraft struck, his professional instinct told him that FDNY would eventually need relief crews. The idea that the towers themselves might collapse was, as he recalls, “the furthest thing from my mind.”
Then everything changed.
By the time Esposito reached FDNY’s Special Operations Command headquarters, colleagues were telling him: “We think we lost everybody.” The enormity of what had happened began to emerge — command structures disrupted, communications lost, accountability uncertain and firefighters desperately trying to determine who had survived.
| MORE: The long aftermath of 9/11: A public safety timeline
Rebuilding accountability
Those experiences subsequently changed how the FDNY prepares for catastrophe. Esposito points to dramatically improved fireground accountability, digital riding lists, individually identifiable radio transmissions, and much tighter control of personnel and resources as examples. One particularly important lesson 9/11 highlighted was the danger of well-intentioned self-deployment. The instinct of firefighters, EMS personnel and police officers is to run toward the emergency, but an uncontrolled flood of responders can create another problem.
Today, Esposito’s message is clear: if a major incident happens, off-duty personnel should generally report to their firehouse or EMS station, obtain their equipment and become part of an organized response. “Let the on-duty folks deal with it, get to your firehouse and get ready to help them.”
That lesson extends far beyond the FDNY. Major incidents are not solved by assembling the greatest possible number of people at the scene. They require command; accountability; disciplined resource allocation; and the ability to sustain operations into the next shift, the next day and, if necessary, the weeks that follow.
A new era of mutual aid
September 11 also transformed interagency cooperation. FDNY learned from incident management teams that arrived from elsewhere in the country, bringing capabilities and approaches that were then unfamiliar to them in New York. Esposito remembers assigning one such team a communications problem — and watching them solve it. In the years since, FDNY has become part of that same national system of assistance, deploying expertise and personnel to disasters from Hurricane Katrina, to wildfires and other major emergencies.
Taking care of the caregivers
For Esposito, there is another lesson that extends well beyond incident command: take care of the people who take care of everyone else.
He describes peer support not as a formal intervention imposed after tragedy, but something embedded within firehouse culture. When members experience a difficult incident or a personal crisis, trained peers can arrive with coffee, food and conversation — not forcing people into a mandatory debrief, but simply being present. Some responders want to talk immediately. Others need time. Some may not want to talk at all. The purpose is to ensure that everyone understands that support exists and that someone is paying attention.
The continuing human cost of 9/11 makes that responsibility particularly poignant. Esposito described three memorial walls at FDNY headquarters: the traditional line-of-duty memorial, a second dedicated to those who subsequently died from World Trade Center-related illnesses, and another honoring firefighters who had already retired by Sept. 11, 2001, but who returned to help and later died from 9/11-related disease.
September 11, in other words, did not end on September 11, 2001.
| MORE: How the WTC Health Program continues to support 9/11 responders
A message to the next generation
For a new generation of firefighters, paramedics and police officers — many of whom were not yet born in 2001 — Esposito believes remembrance has to mean more than learning history. He wants them to understand what responders faced that morning and, critically, what they chose to do.
If those responders never showed up, he observed, civilian deaths could have numbered in the tens of thousands. Responders entered extraordinarily dangerous conditions and helped thousands escape. Some, he believes, probably understood that they themselves might not make it home.
And they continued doing their jobs.
That is why Esposito repeatedly returned to two words during our discussion: measure up.
The challenge for today’s responder is not to recreate September 11. It is to ask whether their preparation, professionalism and actions are worthy of those who came before them.
Know your job. Train for what can be anticipated. Understand that the actual emergency may look nothing like the standard operating procedure. Then apply the fundamental principles — life safety, rescue, command, teamwork — to whatever presents itself.
Esposito illustrated the point with a recent Bronx fire. An explosion in an apartment building blew multiple doors from their frames, and spread fire into a public hallway and several apartments simultaneously. There was no neat SOP describing precisely that situation.
The crews simply had to understand their profession well enough to adapt.
That ability — to prepare rigorously while remaining capable of improvisation — is perhaps one of the most important lessons connecting September 11 to emergency response today.
| MORE: ‘Nobody to triage’: FDNY commissioner recalls EMS’s sobering mission on 9/11
Leadership as service
There is also humility in Esposito’s view of leadership. Now occupying the highest uniformed position in the FDNY, he describes headquarters’ role very simply: “Take care of the people that take care of the city.”
Nobody calls 911 hoping the Chief of Department arrives in his command vehicle. They want the firefighters and paramedics who arrive at their door. Leadership therefore exists to make sure those responders have the equipment, training, support and resources necessary to succeed.
And there is an even harder lesson.
September 12 came.
Despite losing 343 FDNY members on Sept. 11, including some of the department’s most senior leaders, firehouse doors opened the following morning. Firefighters climbed onto apparatus. EMS crews staffed ambulances. Calls continued to arrive from millions of New Yorkers who still needed help.
The department mourned — and the department continued.
That, for Esposito, is also part of “never forget.” It is a story not simply of sacrifice, but resilience.
Twenty-five years later, his message to the next generation of fire, EMS and law enforcement professionals is therefore remarkably straightforward:
Remember their names.
Remember what they faced.
Remember what they did.
And then ask yourself whether you are prepared to measure up.
