Chapter 4 explores the massive communication failures fire chiefs experience upon arrival at the tower, minutes after the first impact, along with highlighting the lack of communication between the fire and police departments. The authors state the communications technology was not good enough, suggesting a lack of lessons learned from the 1993 bombing and touching on the sometimes-bitter relationship between the two departments. The last time a joint-effort training for such a situation occurred had been in 1982, when an Argentine airline had difficulty communicating with air traffic controllers and almost hit the north tower. The chapter closes with Battalion 1 Fire Chief Joseph Pfeifer, whose brother, also a fire chief and present at the center that day, receives no response from any of the units he has sent upstairs, to aide in the evacuation.

When Pfeifer arrives on the scene, he knows the laws of physics make it impossible to stop the blaze: “The limitation was a matter not of bravery or skill or brawn […] Each hose could shoot 250 gallons of water a minute, enough to douse a fire spread across 2,500 square feet” (37). Pfeifer tells the department the fire is four alarms, the department’s highest level.