Paso Robles firefighters honor 9/11 victims during Plaskett Fire briefing

There was a moment on the morning of Sept. 11, 2026, when the busy machinery of a wildfire incident camp in Paso Robles gave way to something quieter. Hundreds of firefighters and emergency personnel — gathered for an operational briefing on the Plaskett Fire burning in Monterey County — looked up to see an American flag unfurled from the ladder of a Paso Robles Fire and Emergency Services truck.

As the Paso Robles Daily News reported, the display marked the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it turned an ordinary morning briefing into an act of remembrance for the 343 Fire Department of the City of New York firefighters and the many others who died in 2001.

A Fire Camp in the Heart of Paso Robles

Paso Robles has spent days serving as a staging ground for the regional response to the Plaskett Fire. The Paso Robles fairgrounds and Pioneer Park have operated as a base camp for the incident, bringing hundreds of out-of-area firefighters, engines, and support personnel into town.

The city's own department has been part of the effort. Ten Paso Robles staff members were assigned to the fire, according to the Daily News, and as containment on the blaze increased, three personnel remained on the fire line and with the incident management team.

That meant that on the anniversary of the deadliest day in the history of American firefighting, Paso Robles firefighters were doing what their New York counterparts were doing 25 years ago: answering a call. The flag display, raised from the department's new ladder truck, gave the assembled crews a chance to pause — however briefly — before returning to the work of the day.

Remembering the 343

The number 343 has become sacred shorthand in the fire service for the FDNY members who climbed the stairs of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, as everyone else was coming down. A quarter-century later, that sacrifice is still taught to every rookie, honored at every firehouse, and marked in communities far from Manhattan — including here on the Central Coast.

The Plaskett Fire briefing was one of those markers. When firefighters from multiple agencies stand together under an American flag on Sept. 11, the gesture needs no speech. Everyone present understands the lineage: the job is the same one it was in 2001, and so are its risks.

The Stair Climb Continues the Tradition

The remembrance didn't end at the base camp. Paso Robles firefighters and community members will take part in a 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb on Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Paso Robles Event Center — the same fairgrounds that has been hosting fire camp.

Climbers will ascend 1,980 steps while carrying up to 45 pounds of gear, mirroring the climb that World Trade Center firefighters made up the towers' stairwells. It is a grueling, deliberately symbolic act: participants step into, in some small way, the physical experience of those FDNY companies.

The climb also serves a cause rooted in fire-service compassion. Proceeds benefit the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, specifically its Champ Camp program, which serves young burn survivors. The foundation — a California nonprofit named for a child who died from burn injuries — has long partnered with fire departments across the state. Residents wanting details on the climb can check the Paso Robles Firefighters Facebook page.

Why It Matters Here

For a mid-sized city like Paso Robles, the convergence this week is striking. The fairgrounds that normally hosts the Mid-State Fair and community events has been home to a wildfire incident command operation. Local firefighters who could have attended a solemn anniversary ceremony have instead been on a fire line in neighboring Monterey County. And still, they found a way to honor the day.

That is the through-line of the fire service that Sept. 11 made visible to the whole world: the work continues, and the remembering happens inside it. A flag raised from a ladder truck at a morning briefing — no podium, no crowd of spectators, just firefighters standing with firefighters — may be the most honest memorial of all.

Twenty-five years on, the promise of "never forget" is kept in exactly these ways: in base camps and stair climbs, in small-town fairgrounds turned incident posts, and in the names of the 343 carried in the muscle memory of every firefighter who pulls on 45 pounds of gear and starts climbing.

Information for this story comes from reporting by the [Paso Robles Daily News](https://pasoroblesdailynews.com/paso-robles-firefighters-honor-9-11-victims-during-plaskett-fire-briefing/223565/).