After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, it took firefighters three days to extinguish the flames. Firefighter Patrick Creed and journalist Rick Newman join Fresh Air to talk about the Pentagon blaze and the book they wrote about it, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11.

Firefight tells the stories of the people inside the Pentagon when the plane hit, the rescue efforts that followed the attack and the three-day battle to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters faced unique circumstances, Creed and Newman write, because structural reinforcements built to safeguard the Pentagon against attack — like blast-proof windows and a roof covered by a foot of concrete — hampered their progress.

Creed, a volunteer firefighter, recently returned from Iraq, where he served as a civil-affairs officer with the Army's Special Operations Command.

Newman is a staff-writer for U.S. News and World Report.

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