Donald Burns

Chief Donald Burns began his fire service career in 1962 in Brooklyn. Since 1983 he was involved in Major Incident Command, and was the commander of Tower 1 in the 1993 terrorist attack at the World Trade Center . In 1997 he became City-Wide Tour Commander, and was assigned to all major incidents in New York City. He also was responsible for training new Chiefs in the field. Chief Burns lectured on managing terrorism incidents.

On September 11th, 2001, though off duty, he responded to another terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. He died as a result of the collapse of Tower Two, where he was directing rescue operations.