Fort Belvoir Fire Department

According to a fireman’s account, firefighting efforts at the Pentagon are hampered by smoke and small explosions coming out of a construction trailer near the impact site. On the morning of 9/11, Russell “Rusty” Dodge, Jr., an assistant chief with the Fort Belvoir Fire Department, is at Fort Meyer, about a mile from the Pentagon, for a training exercise (see Before 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). He is one of the first to arrive on the scene. He tries to put out the fires, but a construction trailer is a serious obstacle. He will later recall, “[T]hat trailer was the main producer of smoke on the outside of the building….” The trailer “was producing some severe fires and subsequent mini explosions due to highly flammable chemicals in it…. Luckily the chemical containers were caged. Otherwise the fires would have been worse.” [MDW News Service, 10/4/2001]