This event was so far beyond the scale of what is reasonable to plan for though. Consider an engine company that may have 4 firefighters on a typical shift. The

This event was so far beyond the scale of what is reasonable to plan for though. Consider an engine company that may have 4 firefighters on a typical shift. They probably have 6-7 SCBA to account for equipment failures, etc. So, what happens when you recall all 4 shifts and suddenly have 16-20 firefighters trying to use less than half that number of SCBA? It's a situation with no "right" answer. I was not at ground zero, but have friends and colleagues that were, and my understanding is that SCBA use was prioritized for the "most" IDLH areas, but that still left a huge number of folks working in areas where, under normal circumstances, you'd absolutely be wearing a pack. I can only speak for myself and my agency (a suburban combination career/volunteer dept in upstate New York), but we are were careful about PPE usage, air management, etc.