NEW YORK — A state appeals court in Manhattan ruled that the Fire Department can’t edit out statements about emergency workers’ personal feelings when it releases documents and audiotapes showing the workers’ response to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division reversed a lower court ruling that directed disclosure of the firefighters’ and emergency workers’ oral histories but ordered removed the workers’ personal expressions of feeling, opinions and recommendations.

In a 5-0 decision made public Jan. 8, the appeals court ordered that the workers’ expressions of personal feelings be restored, saying they did not fall into any category that makes public agency documents exempt.

The city still does not have to divulge firefighters’ opinions and recommendations after the attacks, the court said, because that material is covered by an exemption to the state Freedom of Information Law.

The appeals court ruled in response to The New York Times’ request to review tapes of 911 calls made from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as firefighters’ internal interviews following the attacks.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey released thousands of pages of its own emergency transcripts relating to the attacks last year.

Lawyers for both the Times and the city said they were considering appeals. There is no timetable yet for when the city might release the records.

The city and some firefighters’ families wanted to block release of the 911 tapes on grounds that they invaded the employees’ privacy. The appeals court agreed that callers’ words on 911 tapes could be withheld on those grounds.

“Disclosure of the highly personal expressions of persons who were facing imminent death, expressing fear and panic, would be hurtful to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities who is a survivor of someone who made a 911 call before dying,” the appeals court said.

“The anguish of these relatives, as well as the callers who survived the attack, outweighs the public interest in disclosure of these words, which would shed little light on public issues.”

The court also ruled that factual material the city gave to the federal government for its criminal prosecution of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui should be disclosed, even records “compiled for law enforcement purposes.”

Moussaoui is being held as the only person charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that included 19 suicide hijackers. Pretrial proceedings in his case have been underway in Virginia for the past several months.

The court said the city “did not meet its burden of showing that such a disclosure would interfere with the Moussaoui prosecution or deny him a fair trial.”