At 9:52 a.m., gasping for breath, sounding stressed but in control, Orio reached for his radio. Roughly forty-five minutes had passed since he rushed into the burning South Tower, rode an elevator up forty floors, then scaled more than seven hundred steps. Now, he faced the twin forces driving his professional life: a fire to fight, and people to help. “We’ve got two isolated pockets of fire!” Orio radioed Lieutenant Joe Leavey of Ladder 15, who’d reached the 70th floor. “We should be able to knock it down with two lines.” Encountering the bloodbath in the sky lobby, Orio described what the
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