Station honors heroes

To mark the sixth anniversary of 9/11, firefighters at Newport Beach Fire Station No. 8 planted 343 flags in the front yard of their firehouse. Each flag represents the New York City firefighters who were killed while making rescues at the World Trade Center. The flags will stay up until Thursday.

Capt. Jeff Boyles has made two visits to ground zero since the attacks, the first only three months after the terrorist attacks.

“We see it on TV and it affected our entire country, but when you actually go there and see it in person it hits you emotionally.”

Also, an engine from Fire Station No. 3 will take a short trip to nearby Santa Ana Tuesday to participate in that city’s 9/11 remembrance ceremony.

The memorial service begins at noon in the Santa Ana Civic Center Plaza at Santa Ana Boulevard and Broadway.

Roughly 100 firefighters die every year, and that number tripled in that one event in New York City, Boyles noted.

“It just really puts in perspective how many people died in one day,” Boyles said. “One firehouse lost all their people working that one day.”

Normally, “You lose one guy and it is a big deal,” Boyles added.

Returning the second time on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, Boyles and a number of Newport Beach Firefighters carried a flag in the parade during a remembrance ceremony.

Boyles traveled both times with his father, a fire chief in the Bay Area, to offer support to the families of those who did not survive, and even to the fire and emergency crews who did.

“Sometimes it was just letting those who survived tell their stories,” Boyles said. “It was really cathartic.”