Second-generation Kilgore firefighter named new fire marshal

By LESTER MURRAYnews@kilgorenewsherald.com

Chief Ronnie Moore, Kilgore Police Chief (right) stands with newly promoted Mark Frederick of the Kilgore Fire Department. Moore promoted Frederick to Fire Marshal two weeks ago after Dale McBride retired from the position.

Fire Marshall Dale McBride has retired from Kilgore Fire Department after 25 years of service. Captain Mark Frederick has been promoted to fire marshal after serving three years as assistant fire marshal.

Chief Ronnie Moore said Frederick is doing an “outstanding job” and expects good things in the future with Frederick in the position.

Frederick has been with the Kilgore Fire Department since May of 1980, working his way up to driver in 1985. He was promoted to captain in 1992 and became assistant fire marshal in 2000.

“I have received most of my training from Texas A&M where I attended fire and arson investigator school, which consisted of 144 hours,” said Frederick. “I am also a certified police officer, master structural firefighter, advanced fire instructor and hold an inspector’s certificate.”

Frederick said some of his responsibilities are fire inspections, fire prevention and arson investigation. “Fire inspections take up the biggest majority of my time.” said Frederick. “I perform about six mandatory inspections a month, which can take up to three or four hours each.”

Frederick said his office also performs all the sprinkler inspections throughout the city and these are mandatory. “From schools to Wal-Mart, they all have to be inspected and tested,” said Frederick. “I’m lucky in some sense that the City of Kilgore is in really good shape in this area.”

Frederick said the toughest part of his job is investigating arsons. “I want to make sure in these cases that the final results of the investigation are beyond reproach,” said Frederick. “If I think something is not quite right I won’t hesitate to call in ATF, a state arson investigator or the arson dog in order to get at all the facts of any particular fire.”

Frederick said he is working on updating all the records and getting information needed at the scene on computers so every fireman will have this information right away. “Our fire trucks already have laptop computers in them, so by getting all our information computerized it will be available in the field and I hope to accomplish this in the next three years,” said Frederick.

Frederick’s father, Charles (Buck) Frederick, was a life member of the Kilgore Fire Department.

Moore said Frederick is going to be a real asset to the position of fire marshal. “I am already preparing to promote someone to assistant fire marshal to fill the vacancy Frederick created and the fire department is getting ready to promote a new captain said Moore. “The fire department is almost at full strength and the department has very little turnover.”

Frederick said since being promoted to the fire marshal’s office he does miss the action of fighting fires and especially the camaraderie of living with a bunch of guys you spend almost a third of your life with.