John Sturgeon was awarded a 50-year Gold Star medal for 50 years of service as a volunteer firefighter at the recent Kurow Fire Brigade awards.
It felt "pretty amazing" to have been awarded the medal, he said.
"I’m quite thrilled to have reached this target in life."
Mr Sturgeon first joined the Otematata Fire Brigade in 1973 before transfering to Kurow three years later.
In 1979, he took over as chief fire officer.
He stood down from that position in June last year after 43 years, an achievement which is believed to make him the longest-serving volunteer chief fire officer in New Zealand.
After all these years, it is the people he has worked with that make him love what he does.
"It’s the camaraderie more than anything and just to be with the other people and work with them as a unit."
He has a "massive amount of memories" from all the call-outs throughout his career.
In that time, he has just about seen it all.
"It’s not the thing you want to talk about but there’s a wide range of things from fires, open grassland fires, house burns that have been total destruction to medical events, vehicle crashes."
While it was extremely sad when the brigade could not help everyone, the job was still very rewarding when they could assist people.
"It’s rewarding in the respect of that you’ve helped somebody and probably helped them to the better side of things.
"Sometimes you’ve been successful, sometimes you haven’t.
"There’s been a lot of tragedies and a lot of sadness but then a lot of pleasure as well knowing you’ve been able to help somebody and been successful."
Looking ahead, Mr Sturgeon has no thought of hanging up the fireman’s hat just yet.
"I’d like to keep going as long as I could.
"I think that it will all depend on health and fitness.
"Who knows? We’ve got no idea what’s around the corner."
He was not the only one that was honoured at the event.
Richard Aarts was awarded a gold medal for 25 years of service and Sharlene Murdoch received a long service and good conduct award for 14 years of service.
Gavin Cochrane also received a two-year gold bar for 29 years of service and Steven Hartendorf was awarded a three-year certificate.
