NICK ROGERS and Tony Elliott had never met before they moved to Julian, an old goldmining town in the mountains of southern California. In a community of 1,621 it did not take them long to recognise each other’s accents, which belong 6,000 miles away across the Atlantic.

Mr Rogers, 27, is a Cockney and Mr Elliott, 41, hails from Co Durham. When they both joined the volunteer fire department for Julian and nearby Cuyamaca, their friendship was sealed. Last week they found themselves on the same fire engine, No 71, fighting the biggest blaze of the biggest firestorm to engulf the Golden State in memory. The Englishmen, one from Bethnal Green, the other from Bishop Auckland, and both known fondly by their colleagues as “the limeys”, are local heroes for their part in saving Julian from the 200ft flames that swept across the state, killing 20 people, destroying 4,443 homes and forcing 100,000 Californians to be moved to safety.

While he was battling to save the weatherboard shops and buildings in the centre of Julian, Mr Rogers’s own home, a beautiful hillside wooden lodge with a spectacular view, burnt to the ground.

Mr Elliott’s home survived, but his American girlfriend’s did not. She herself suffered broken ribs when a horsebox door fell on her as she tried to save her animals from the fire.

Local people can barely express their gratitude to the two men. “We love you Brits,” said one, Bobby Grillo. “You always stand by us when things get tough.”

Far behind police roadblocks, amid a blizzard of ash from fires still raging near by, Mr Rogers and his American wife, Christina, returned for the first time to where their home used to stand. It will be days or weeks before other residents are allowed back into the area, which is strewn with fallen power lines and other deadly hazards.

“That was a barbecue I bought last week for $1,000,” said Mr Rogers, kicking a bulky lump of steel that had turned white with heat.

Once a lush mountaintop paradise, Mr Rogers’s street is now lined with burnt-out cars, white skeletons of trees and black, charred earth. Solitary chimneys and the barely recognisable remains of kitchen appliances mark the plots of land where once there were houses.

Standing knee-deep in warm ash on the plot of land he used to call home, Mr Rogers, who moved to America to live with his stepfather at the age of 16, was still able to crack jokes. But he kept his sunglasses on so as not to show his emotion. “We were planning to sit out here last weekend and have a bottle of wine and a few beers,” he said, pointing to the remains of the garden wall he had finished building the previous week.

Instead, Mr Rogers found himself on the outside “jump seat” of Engine No 71, as it became trapped in a firestorm and had to wait for the raging inferno to pass.

The firefighters wrapped themselves in fire blankets to survive, and smeared sunscreen on their faces. Mrs Rogers, 27, fled to an evacuation centre with the couple’s four-month-old baby and two-year-old child. It was four days before Mrs Rogers heard from her husband again, fire having ripped through Julian’s telephone exchanges and brought down mobile phone masts.

“To start off, it was kind of exciting, to be honest,” said Mr Rogers, who had joined the volunteer fire department for Julian and Cuyamaca barely a week before the wildfire started. “Then it got pretty scary. I was on the jump seat and fire was raining down on the engine. Then propane tanks started exploding around us.”

Engine No 71 had no choice but to stay put. “We were just trying to keep the flames off us.” Eventually the inferno, at one point devouring two acres every second, passed over them.

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