Steve Buscemi returned to firefighting after 9/11 and backed a charity for his former colleagues

Steve Buscemi worked as a full-time New York City firefighter before starting his acting career. Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi had left the New York City Fire Department to pursue acting, but the September 11, 2001, attacks brought him back to the fire service. The next morning, he returned to Ground Zero, where he joined firefighters searching through the rubble of the World Trade Center. Years later, he continued supporting his former colleagues through Friends of Firefighters, a nonprofit that provides free, confidential mental health services to firefighters and their families.According to an article Steve himself wrote for TIME magazine in September 2021, he had spent four years working at Engine 55 in Lower Manhattan before taking a leave of absence to focus on acting. He had expected to return to firefighting one day. After the attacks, he collected his old gear, got a lift to the disaster site and joined a bucket brigade moving debris. “Seventeen years later, I was,” Buscemi wrote in TIME, referring to his return to the fire service. He described the rubble being passed along the line and recalled the disturbing sight of body bags being carried away.The actor said the dust ...