Kevin Reilly came from a family of firefighters. His father, George, was a retired fire lieutenant. And his wife of two months was the daughter of another firefighter. Reilly, who started his career at the same firehouse as his father, was one of those killed on the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. “He loved the fire department,” said his wife, Jennifer. “He liked the camaraderie and the brotherhood and it was in his blood.” A 19-month fire department veteran at the time of his death, Reilly, 28, was just starting the second year of a three-year rotation, when firefighters spend a year each at three different stations. He spent his first year at Ladder Company 40 in Harlem, where, on the wall, is a picture of him as a toddler attending a Christmas party with his father, his wife recalled. “He was actually working with people who had worked with his dad,” Jennifer Reilly said. More recently, he was working with Engine Company 207 on Tillary Street in Brooklyn. Reilly grew up in Spring Valley and Nanuet, N.Y., graduating from Albertus Magnus High School. He was a member of the high school baseball and cross-country track teams and was president of his senior class. It was in high school that he met his future wife, now an elementary school teacher. Reilly later attended SUNY-Oneonta, where he became president of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. For a while, it did not seem as if firefighting would be Reilly’s calling. Studying water resources in college, he worked as a hydrogeologist before he was appointed to the fire department in February 2000. Reilly, who once backpacked through Europe, was a runner outside of work, finishing the 1999 New York City Marathon in four hours and 17 minutes, family members said. He also played softball for the fire department. He was a big Yankees fan, they said. “He was full of energy,” said his mother, Joan. “He was athletic. He loved to travel and was very good to his family.” Jennifer Reilly recalled that her husband once told her three things: He would be a firefighter, she would be a teacher, and they would be married.“It all came true,” she said.

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