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KEVIN FLYNN
The New York Times - Reprinted with Permission

NEW YORK -- Tens of thousands of firefighters, some traveling from as far away as Ireland and Japan, are expected to fill Madison Square Garden and the surrounding blocks on Saturday as the Fire Department holds an official memorial service for members who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Inside the FDNY Service Revised Logistics for Attendees Latest Event News UFA Local 94 FDNY Home Page IAFF: Latest Service Information Dave J Iannone/Firehouse.com We have no information on any television or web broadcast of this event. If an announcement is made regarding a broadcast, we will post it on the site Event Day Instructions Source: IAFF/FDNY Pre-Registered Flag Bearers: Those members who have registered as flag bearers will assemble on 11th Ave. and 33rd Street at 6 a.m. IAFF marshals will provide each individual with a flag holster and an American flag, and will divide the flag bearers into two groups. One group of flag bearers will proceed to Madison Square Garden. The other group will be brought to the front of the procession on 9th Ave. The flag bearers will represent a cross-section of IAFF locals from across the United States and Canada. Non-FDNY Uniformed Fire Fighters: All non-FDNY uniformed fire fighters and paramedics who wish to participate in the procession must assemble by 7 a.m. on 9th Ave. and 23rd Street. A procession of uniformed personnel will begin at that location, proceeding on a route through mid-town Manhattan to Madison Square Garden. All personnel should wear Class A uniforms. Honor Guards will be positioned throughout the procession. There will be no fire apparatus or fire vehicles in the procession. All buses carrying members should enter 10th Ave. at 14th Street and proceed north to 33rd Street, where they will park as directed by NYPD. Members will then walk to the marshalling area. Members living in the Metro New York/ New Jersey/Connecticut area are asked to use public transportation. There will be no on street parking for private vehicles or fire apparatus in the entire area surrounding Madison Square Garden, from 34th Street south to 14th Street and from 6th Avenue west to 11th Avenue. Those arriving by private vehicles will need to park in other areas of New York City and use public transportation. Large screens will be available outside the Madison Square Garden for non-FDNY personnel to watch the memorial service.

City and fire union officials have made elaborate preparations for the event, which they view as a cathartic final farewell to the 343 firefighters whose deaths overwhelmed the Fire Department's previous calculus for loss. Before Sept. 11, the entire nation had seldom lost more than 100 firefighters in a year.

Each of the families of the honored dead will be brought to the event in a limousine, fire officials said. Thousands of local firefighters and thousands from distant departments will take part in the ceremony by marching up Eighth Avenue from 23rd Street to the arena behind the Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band.

Most of the visitors will not be allowed inside. The 25,000 tickets for the 10 a.m. event have already been distributed to families and New York firefighters, fire officials said. But thousands of visiting firefighters are planning to stand outside to watch the three-hour program on huge video screens, union officials said.

"We have just an overwhelming amount of support for our brethren in New York," said Capt. James I. Ridley, one of 65 firefighters from Fort Wayne, Ind., who are planning to make the trip. "The many firefighters that they lost in New York would have wiped out the entire force in Fort Wayne. It was unfathomable."

The cost of the event is expected to approach $3 million, and much of it will be underwritten by the International Association of Fire Fighters, the union that represents firefighters, said George Burke, a spokesman for the union. Mr. Burke and fire officials said firefighters from France, Panama, Spain, Britain, Australia and New Zealand have sent word that they will attend the event, as have thousands from departments across the country and Canada.

Mr. Burke declined to estimate attendance, saying only that a large crowd was expected. "When a firefighter dies in Washington State, or New York City, or Texas or Nebraska, you would be amazed to see the number of e-mails and calls and flowers that will arrive at that fire department," he said. "The loss for one is a loss for all."

Fire officials have said they expect tens of thousands of firefighters for the event. Six thousand of the seats have been reserved for families of 356 honored dead, including the 343 firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 9 other members of the department who died in the last two years, and 3 retired members who were working as private fire safety directors and a member of the insurance industry's Fire Patrol who died when the trade center collapsed.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said, "This is the first time the department as a department, complete and whole, every member who is not working, will be gathered together to pay tribute to those who have made, as we say, the supreme sacrifice."

The Fire Department traditionally holds a memorial ceremony each fall for fallen firefighters, but last year the event was canceled after the attack. The ceremony usually draws several thousand participants and is held at the Firemen's Memorial on Riverside Drive at 100th Street. This year the location was changed because of the anticipated crowds.

Officials of the Uniformed Firefighters Association said yesterday that they expected many of the visitors to attend a rally in Central Park that they were planning for Friday to protest the firefighters' wages. The rally had been planned for Times Square, but the location was changed when the Bloomberg administration objected to the site, contending it would disrupt Midtown.

From The New York Times on the Web (c) The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission

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