First responders, active-duty military members and veterans will climb 110 flights of stairs inside The STRAT this fall to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, honoring nearly 3,000 people who died that day. The memorial stair climb begins with an 8 a.m. opening ceremony featuring an honor guard performance and a flyover by the Young Soldiers Air Force, followed by a climb that runs until 10:30 a.m.
As reported by FOX5 Vegas, the opening ceremony takes place in front of The STRAT tower on Las Vegas Boulevard, with the registration table opening at 7:30 a.m. Registration costs $30 per participant and is open to first responders — police, fire and EMS personnel — along with active-duty military, veterans and their family members, provided they are at least 18 years old. Anyone signing up must be capable of climbing the full 110 flights with minimal breaks, and sign-ups are available at tickets.thestrat.com, according to the station's report.
Getting to 110 flights takes some doing inside The STRAT itself. Standing 1,149 feet tall, the tower is the tallest freestanding observation structure in the country, but it actually has 108 floors and 1,455 steps to its observation deck, according to Wikipedia — meaning organizers must adapt or loop portions of the stairwell to hit the symbolic 110-story benchmark shared by memorial climbs nationwide.
Why 110 Flights, Specifically
That number isn't arbitrary. The roughly 2,200-step, 110-story format replicates the height of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and specifically honors the 343 FDNY firefighters, 72 police officers and 10 EMS personnel killed on September 11, 2001, Hoodline has reported. The tradition traces back to September 11, 2005, in Denver, when five firefighters in full bunker gear climbed 110 flights to honor their fallen FDNY brothers, according to Kansas City Stair Climb's history of the event, a tribute that has since spread to cities across the country.
Under national protocol set by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, these climbs are not timed races but solemn memorial walks — each participant carries a badge bearing the photo and name of a specific fallen responder to symbolically complete the ascent on their behalf. That distinguishes The STRAT's 9/11 climb from the tower's other well-known stairwell event, the annual Scale the STRAT vertical race for the American Lung Association, where elite tower runner Soh Wai Ching set a course record of 6 minutes, 46 seconds for all 108 floors in February 2023, per the Malay Mail.
Where The Money Goes
Proceeds from this year's climb will benefit the Vegas Fire & Rescue Charitable Association, the Nevada Burn Foundation and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, per FOX5's report. The Firefighters of Southern Nevada Burn Foundation, founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit by local firefighters in 2003, channels event proceeds into its Burn Survivor Initiative, which funds seasonal burn camps, counseling and school reintegration for burn victims across Southern Nevada. In the September 2024 climb at the same venue, more than 400 first responders and military participants raised over $10,000, split evenly among the three beneficiary organizations, according to Non-Profit News Vegas.
This year's fundraising also feeds into a larger national push. To mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation is delivering 343 mortgage-free homes to catastrophically injured veterans, fallen first responder families and Gold Star families nationwide, the organization says. The foundation is named for FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in full gear on September 11, 2001.
Part Of A Full Day Of Remembrance
The STRAT climb isn't a standalone event. It's embedded in a broader, valley-wide day of commemoration organized by the Professional Fire Fighters of Nevada, which also includes an early-morning 343-minute Freedom Ride exercise event and an evening 9/11 Tribute Procession down Fremont Street, according to Non-Profit News Vegas. Once the climb wraps up, participants and spectators are invited to a toast to the fallen at PT's Pub inside The STRAT.
The stair climb also sits alongside the City of Las Vegas's official municipal 9/11 ceremonies, which Hoodline has previously reported include the Tolling of the Bells, public viewings of a World Trade Center steel artifact, and a seedling grown from Ground Zero's Callery pear Survivor Tree. Together, the events reflect a full day of tributes across the Las Vegas valley honoring those killed in the attacks and the first responders who continue to serve in their memory.
