By 
September 11, 2025
Climbing 28 flights of stairs. Four times. Back to back to back to back.
It’s the least, they figure, they can do.
“This is always a good reminder of why I decided to choose this career,” said Matt Seikel, a driver engineer for Huntsville Fire & Rescue (HFR) at Station 9 in south Huntsville.
Today, of course, is a somber day. It’s the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Last Sunday was somber, too. And uplifting.
Part of the group of 35 Huntsville Fire & Rescue firefighters who participated in the Nashville 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb on Sept. 7, 2025.
Thirty-five volunteers from HFR – “the most I’ve ever seen go, so that was pretty impressive,” Seikel said – traveled to Tennessee to participate in the Nashville 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, a fundraiser for FDNY family survivors through the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
At the William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower in downtown Nashville, exactly 343 firefighters from across the region assembled. Each firefighter represented a firefighter from FDNY who died on Sept. 11, 2001.
The staging area is in the basement. Firefighters pull on their full turnout gear, including air tanks, about 60 pounds of equipment altogether – just like their colleagues at FDNY did on that sunny Tuesday morning. As they line up, they clip on a small lanyard with a photo and the name of one of the 343 heroes.
And then they begin.
28 flights up, then back down. Again and again and again.
It’s a tribute to the fallen who were prepared to climb the stairs to reach the top of the 110-story World Trade Center’s twin towers.
“It’s an honor,” HFR Station 1 Capt. Chris Salvail said. “It’s grueling. You think about what they were doing. We don’t have any of that fear they were facing.”
Throughout the climb, FDNY radio traffic from Sept. 11 plays in the background.
“Most of them knew they were in a losing situation,” Salvail said. “It is a moving thing, for sure.”
Said HFR Station 1 Capt. Allen Painter, “It’s always going through your mind. Just trying to wrap your head around what it must have been like that day.”
“It’s about being something bigger than yourself.” Huntsville Fire & Rescue firefighters pose for photo after climbing stairs to top of William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower four times as part of the Nashville 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
The 24-year-old memory remains vivid for Painter, Salvail and Seikel. Like millions of Americans, they will never forget what they saw on TV that day or felt inside.
Seikel, for example, was 19 at the time and dreaming of a career as a professional hockey player. He was living in Boston, and it wasn’t lost on him that the hijacked planes departed from Boston’s Logan International Airport.
“I didn’t really know of a career path that I wanted just like any 19-year-old,” he said. “But this was something that I realized, it was almost like a calling of just, ‘Hey, serve your community.’”
HFR firefighters often take their families with them to the stair climb. And there is a certain joy, having just attempted to have walked 24-year-old footsteps, in seeing their family. It reminds them of the privilege so often taken for granted.
“I try to find my family after it’s over, get with them and just give them big hugs,” Painter said.
“I usually go right to my family because at the end of the day, that’s what this stair climb is about,” Seikel said.
Salvail, in short, summed it up.
“It’s about being part of something that’s bigger than yourself,” he said. “Just to remember those people that we say we will never forget.”
The 35 HFR firefighters who participated Sunday in the Nashville 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb: Michael Allen, Luke Armstrong, Will Armstrong, Jared Barnes, Cody Bryant, Ben Call, Keith Casteel, Daniel Cigalotti, Austin Crocker, Jimmy Davis, Dawson Ellis, Jacob Foster, Taylor Fulmer, Jason Gaither, James Gay, Calvin Hadden, Ben Howard, Jesse Kistler, Jim Ed Mills, Zach Moon, Dustin Morrow, Allen Painter, Joseph Pasquinilli, Joey Perpoli, Roger Priven, Scott Reed, Chris Salvail, Chase Sanders, Patrick Satterfield, Matt Seikel, Corey Stewart, Eric Weatherford, Haden Wilkinson, JonMichael Williams and Evan Yother.
