Mark Iceton, the longest-serving volunteer for the Whitehorse Fire Department, retired from the fire service earlier this month after 47 years.

Whitehorse deputy fire chief Chris Green describes Iceton as a remarkable volunteer who was always prepared to step up and assist.

Now 66, Iceton joined on as a volunteer in 1973, a year after moving to Whitehorse from British Columbia to begin a 39-year-career with the city’s water and waste department.

“Doug Row was the deputy chief back then and he asked me if I wanted to join, and I said I would give it a try,” Iceton recalled in an interview with the Star earlier this week.

He says he liked being a volunteer, and found it to be a rewarding way to help people while serving the community.

Dec. 4 was Iceton’s last day.

But as he recalls the past, the sirens of fire trucks can be heard in the distance, and he checks his cell phone to see if he’s still getting the call for volunteers.

How many fires he’s responded to is just too numerous to remember.

Iceton was among the firefighters who fought the fire that destroyed the S.S. Whitehorse and the S.S. Casca sternwheelers that were drydocked along Front Street on June 21, 1974.

His job initially was to keep the nearby roundhouse hosed down, to keep it safe from the intense heat the burning boats were giving off.

There are other notable fires, like the fire that destroyed the airport hangar on the downtown side of the airfield, and the one that gutted the SAAN store in -45 temperatures in early 1991. The replacement building stands at Second Avenue and Ogilvie Street.

There was the house fire in 1986, when Iceton rescued a dog from the home.

The father of two with three grandchildren was also on the Haeckel Hill fire that threatened the city for a time in June 1991.

Iceton says in the years when he first started volunteering, there seemed to be a couple of fires a month, when there were more older homes and buildings in Whitehorse.

“Every fire is a bad fire,” he says, adding they are particularly difficult when fatalities are involved.

Iceton says responding to vehicle accidents is also part of the job that can be emotional. Back in the day, crews didn’t have the rescue tools like the jaws of life they have today.

When he first started, he was given a coat, a hardhat, and boots. It was a lot of on-the-job training, though they did regular training sessions every Tuesday night, a practice that is maintained to this day.

As difficult as it might have been at times, Iceton has no regrets about his service as a volunteer.

“I just enjoyed doing the work,” he says. “It was rewarding to go into a burning building and you knock it out – it was a pretty good feeling.”

Iceton says it was just time for him to hang up his gear, as he is developing arthritis in his left knee.

“I didn’t want to put anybody in danger,” he says. “It was time to go. I was starting to hurt.”

The deputy fire chief says the department is down to a list of six active volunteers when ideally it would like to have 15 on the roster to complement the full-time firefighting staff.

Green says he understands it is a huge time commitment for volunteers, with all the training required and such.

Many people, he says, already have full-time jobs, and some just don’t have to time to make the commitment.

Iceton, says Green, was exceptional.

“Mark was the most senior volunteer we had in this department and probably the most senior we will ever have, to be honest,” he says. “It’s hard to get that dedication anymore.

“He has surpassed everything we can expect from volunteers.”

Green says the department asks its volunteers to be available and on call for 100 hours a month.

Iceton’s name was always on the board as available, he says.

Green says Iceton’s commitment never faded.

“In my books, he is a bit of a legend.”