Summit Fire & EMS to host stair climb to honor 25th anniversary of September 11 attacks (Summit Daily News)

An upward view of a staircase with metal grating, lined with photos on the walls, creating a geometric pattern.

Summit Fire & EMS Engineer Joe Fava is organizing the fifth annual Summit Fire & EMS 9/11 stair climb today. He said the climbs have grown every year, from having around five civilians its first year to 25 pre-registered for this year’s event. The service member participation has grown as well, with the event now attracting service members from outside the county.

Participants lap the tower at the Copper station 18 times to reach the equivalent of 110 stories of stairs — the equivalent to the height of the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the 2001 attacks. Fava said Summit Fire & EMS hangs pictures of the 343 firefighters who died in the attacks along the staircase. Each climber gets an index card with the name of one of the firefighters so they can climb in honor of that person.

“A lot of people at the end will go looking for the name that’s on their card,” Fava said. “They’ll go looking and try and find who that person was to put a face with that name.”