THE ENEMY might be beyond the gates of Camp Bastion – but the base itself is not immune to drama.

Last month, two firefighters from RAF Odiham were rewarded for their bravery after they battled a fire at the base which was said to be one of the largest in RAF firefighting history.

The blaze started on the evening of May 16 amongst storage containers in Leatherneck – the American section of Camp Bastion.

It scorched land the equivalent size of more than two football pitches, destroyed US military equipment such as laptops and tyres, and was at one point fuelled by a sandstorm with winds of up to 60 miles per hour.

Senior Aircraftsman Scott Harrison, 22, and Corporal Ian Stretch, 31, both from the north Hampshire airbase, were two of 40 British firefighters based at Camp Bastion called in to tackle the blaze.

The firefighters are normally split between two fire stations – one to deal with fires on camp and the other by the airfield in case of a fire on an aircraft. But that night, in temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius, it was literally all hands to the pump.

SAC Harrison, midway through his first tour of Afghanistan, said: “It was like hitting the fire with a water pistol at first.

“I didn’t think it was going to stop – the wind was changing all the time. Then the sandstorm came and me and my mate got lost in the commotion.”

The firefighters had to pull back as the sandstorm changed the direction of the fire. But after regrouping they headed back in teams.

Corporal Stretch, vehicle commander, said: “As we went back in, a cylinder exploded and hit the ground a metre from me. But we came together to get the job done.”

The fire was finally brought under control the following evening thanks to the firefighters’ efforts and a change in the wind direction.

Sergeant Rob Moylan, who was based at RAF Odiham between 2005 and 2009 before moving to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, said: “It was probably the most intense experience of firefighting that we have ever had.

“At one point, you are dealing with a fire under control and then a sandstorm comes in and it becomes a situation that is out of your control.”

Nobody was injured in the blaze – a point highlighted by a top US military figure when he visited the airfield fire station to hand out commendations to the firefighters.

Major General Richard Mills, Commander of the US 1st Marine Division, said: “I think that the highest thing we can say is that in a situation where we could have had catastrophic loss of life, because of the way you fought that fire, we lost nobody. I can buy new things but I cannot buy new people.”