LONG CREEK - Lowell Mulvany is preparing to retire, but that isn't likely to end his days answering first alarms with the Long Creek Fire Protection District.

At 65, Mulvany has spent more than half his life - 37 years - fighting fires and answering emergency medical services calls with the department. For the last 22 years, he has been the fire chief and the department's only full-time employee.

"It isn't always the highest-paying job or the best hours," Mulvany said recently during an interview at the district's firehouse on Illinois 121, north of Mount Zion. "But helping people is what kept me here."

Mulvany will remain on the job until April 30, the end of the district's fiscal year, but he knows his replacement well.

District trustees tapped Mark Lawrence, 54, who has been the assistant fire chief for 20 years, to take the top spot. Lawrence has been a volunteer firefighter for 28 years and worked for the village of Mount Zion for many of those. He retired Jan. 2 as the village's manager of buildings and grounds and will start learning the fire chief's job today, working full-time with Mulvany until he retires.

Jeff Engle, president of the fire district's board of trustees, said Mulvany single-handedly has taken care of the district, doing much of the required paperwork.

"He has accommodated us as trustees and done anything the community asked of him," Engle said. "I've only been a trustee for four years, and he has brought me along. He is quiet but doesn't mind sharing details. He knows the district's history.

"Lowell is the quality of person that you don't have to worry about his judgment calls. If you have a question, he has the answer. He is a humble person. He has been involved in not only the fire district but the village as well."

Engle said Mulvany told him from the beginning to "keep it simple," which was the chief's work ethic and has served him well.

Mulvany worked at Decatur's former Firestone plant until he was laid off in April 1980. That fall, he was hired by A.E. Staley Mfg. Co. and remained there until 1987, when he was offered the full-time fire chief's job.

"The prior chief resigned in March of 1986, and they offered me the job, but there was no pay until the next year," he said.

Mulvany and Lawrence agree the department needs more firefighters. It currently has 20.

The department has seven pieces of equipment, and Mulvany has been involved in purchasing all of them.

"I'm the only person on the department who has operated every piece of equipment it has ever owned," he said. "We're a relatively young department, having been formed in 1961. It still had all five pieces of its original equipment when I came on as a firefighter in 1971."

Lawrence said Mulvany is the longest-serving firefighter in the department's history, but he could wrest that title away.

"If I work until normal retirement age, I would be the longer-serving member," Lawrence said.

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