A scorched, crumpled fire truck that once carried six FDNY firefighters into the North Tower is sitting outside the Prince William County Government Center in Woodbridge this week — and all six of the men aboard it died when the tower collapsed on September 11, 2001. The rig belonged to Squad 252, and it has been parked at the county complex since September 8, drawing visitors ahead of its scheduled removal on September 18.
The display, reported by DC News Now, is one of four trucks recovered from the World Trade Center debris, according to the outlet. Fioria Campbell, describing the vehicle's condition, said the truck had severe damage and melted parts, per the station's reporting. The truck was brought from a nearby collection site — the so-called Tank Farm in Nokesville, Virginia — by the nonprofit Americans in Wartime Experience, which loaned the vehicle for the anniversary display, DC News Now reports.
Dennis Brant, CEO of the organization, said the group is displaying artifacts like the truck to educate people about September 11, the station's report notes. The nonprofit also holds a crushed EMT vehicle pulled from the wreckage, two 20,000-pound steel beams from the North Tower, and steel recovered specifically from the tower's 87th floor — the same floor struck by the hijacked plane, per the same account. All of these 9/11 artifacts are planned to become part of a new museum the organization intends to open in Woodbridge next year or in 2028, according to DC News Now.
A County That Lost 22 of Its Own
The truck's arrival landed just days after Prince William County held its own 25th anniversary remembrance ceremony on the evening of September 10 at Sean T. Connaughton Plaza in Woodbridge, where the recovered Squad 252 engine was displayed alongside the county's permanent World Trade Center steel monuments, according to Potomac Local News. That plaza is home to Prince William County's Liberty Memorial, a permanent installation featuring a Pentagon-shaped reflecting pool, twin tower fountains, Pennsylvania flagstone, a Pentagon limestone block, and four WTC steel beams weighing nearly 60,000 pounds combined, per the Prince William County Government.
The weight of that memorial isn't incidental to the county. Prince William County lost 22 residents in the September 11 attacks, the highest casualty count of any local jurisdiction in the Washington, D.C. metro region, according to the county government — most of them killed in the attack on the nearby Pentagon. The county even has a manufacturing tie to the towers themselves: Atlas Machine & Iron Works, a steel fabrication company that once operated in Gainesville, Virginia, originally manufactured the heavy steel box columns used in the foundations and base of the Twin Towers during their original construction, the county government notes.
Squad 252's Six Lost Firefighters
The six members of Squad 252 who died inside the North Tower were Lieutenant Timothy Higgins and Firefighters Patrick Lyons, Thomas Kuveikis, Tarel Coleman, Peter Langone, and Kevin Prior, according to The Brooklyn Ink. The unit had been dispatched from Brooklyn and entered the tower that morning, according to Code 3 Collectibles' FDNY records. Squad 252 operates out of a historic 1896 firehouse on Central Avenue in Bushwick, and it was converted from Engine 252 into a Special Operations Command unit in June 1998, according to Code 3 Collectibles' FDNY records.
The scale of that morning's losses for the department was staggering. The attacks killed 343 New York City firefighters in total, according to FDNY Remembrance and the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
Museum Plans Take Shape Off Dale Boulevard
The organization behind the loaned truck, Americans in Wartime Experience, traces back to the late 1980s, when founder Allan Cors bought a military jeep in Europe and began building a private vehicle collection at the Tank Farm on Aden Road in Nokesville, according to Bristow Beat. The group's planned permanent museum facility, budgeted at $70 million, is slated for a 67-acre site off Dale Boulevard near Interstate 95 in Dale City — with Prince William County Supervisors having already approved naming access roads Americans in Wartime Drive and Voices of Freedom Way, per reporting reviewed via Townnews.
Beyond vehicles and steel, the organization runs a national oral history program that has recorded more than 700 video interviews with veterans and home-front civilians since 2010, according to the same reporting. For now, though, the immediate draw is the crumpled rig outside the county government center — a physical remnant of Ground Zero sitting in Woodbridge for a limited run before it heads back to Nokesville. Fioria Campbell said the museum could help prevent people from forgetting September 11, according to DC News Now.
