Fire Officials to Release 9/11 Records

The New York City Fire Department today will release some 900 hours of radio transmissions from Sept. 11, 2001, and oral histories given by 500 fire personnel in the days after the terrorist attack.

Although the events of Sept. 11 have been examined by a national commission and several oversight agencies, the documents and tapes will again focus attention on that day.

The oral histories will be in the form of transcripts of interviews with firefighters, superior officers, medical workers and other department employees, made in the weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center.

The radio transmissions are recordings of conversations between fire alarm dispatchers and units in the field. They will not include civilian calls for help.

The Fire Department said Thursday that 456 family members of the 343 fire personnel who died on Sept. 11 requested the material, which is on 23 compact discs.

The oral histories were at first thought to be confidential, but the New York Times sued to gain their release. The Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled in the newspaper’s favor in March.

The court allowed any of those interviewed to have deeply personal material edited out if they wished.