At that point in time one of the firefighters received a phone call from her husband who said one of the towers had been hit by an aeroplane.

My reaction was: “Oh yeah, you’re crazy.”

So we went back into the TV room and we watched the news flash. At that time it was like something out of a movie. We saw the second plane hit the other tower. It was unbelievable.

I said to my crew: “It’s going to be a long day.”

'Slow motion'

Right about that time, there was an announcement over our communications system that all engines, all units, were to stay in quarters - keep your stations secure.

About that time the news came on again saying that the Pentagon was hit. At that time your mindset was: “Well, we’re going to be going over there.”

We just basically hung around the station, waiting for our assignments, running our normal fire calls if and when they came in.

You could actually see black particles falling down from the sky. We’re probably a good five to 10 miles away from the Pentagon

Around 2300 they rotated my crew over to the Pentagon. When we first got to the scene it was like slow motion. It was like one of these sci-fi movies, like War of the Worlds.

It looked like something in a movie. I’d never seen anything that large torn up like that - such mass destruction.

I’ve seen a lot of house fires and things of that nature, but nothing on this scale.

Visualise someone taking a bowling ball on fire and throwing it down the lane. And everything it hits and touches it burns, it crumbles. It’s horrific.

And you could actually see where the impact of the plane was.

It was terrible. I’ve never seen anything like it.