The Sedona Fire District will host its annual 9/11 memorial ceremony starting at 8:46 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11, at SFD Station No. 6 at 2675 State Route 179. The event will be followed by a free community breakfast of pancakes, sausage, coffee and juice. 

Attendees should plan to arrive by 8:30 a.m. and parking will be available at the Christ Lutheran Church at 25 Chapel Road. 

“I think the wonderful thing about now having the pancake breakfast with this is that we’re coming together as a community to honor not just firefighters, but all the folks who gave up their lives on Sept. 11,” Sedona Fire District Governing Board Chairwoman Helen McNeal said. “But come together as a community to do it, and I think that’s so meaningful.” 

Remarks will be made by McNeal, Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow and SFD Fire Chief Ed Mezulis. 

McNeal, who grew up in Washington D.C., recalled how she had friends at the Pentagon on the day of the attacks, “so it’s a day that’s very real and very important, and one that I think we always need to honor,” she said. 

The 8:46 a.m. local time corresponds to the time that the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into floors 93 to 99 of the World Trade Center’s North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. A total of 2,977 victims were killed at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, N.Y.; at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and outside Shanksville, Penn., after passengers of the fourth highjacked airliner rushed the cabin, causing it to crash. 

“As generations pass, there’s people now that were born that don’t know a pre-9/11 [world],” SFD Risk Reduction Division Chief Dori Booth said. ”It’s a place for our community to also come and remember, especially for those who are unable to travel to New York or the Pentagon or other areas, to know that we will never forget.”