Hours after their eight-day strike ended, firefighters were out in Sussex battling a massive blaze.

About 20 fought a fire in a storage barn at a farm in Balcombe in the early hours of yesterday.

Crews from Haywards Heath, Crawley, East Grinstead and Horsham spent several hours at Green Trees Farm in the High Street battling to save the building.

Sixteen firefighters had to use breathing apparatus to tackle the blaze. One team stayed behind until 9am damping down and making sure the barn was safe.

The call came just hours after the end of the eight-day firefighters' strike during which Navy crews manning Green Goddesses answered 164 calls across Sussex.

There were 36 car fires, almost a quarter of all emergencies.

Brighton had 48 calls while Worthing and Eastbourne both had 15 incidents.

But there were fears the Navy had been lucky and hit a quiet period.

Firefighters said if Green Goddesses had been sent to the barn fire it was likely the building would have been destroyed.

Firefighter Les Maddams, based at Haywards Heath, said: "There would have been a lot more damage. They would have lost the whole building rather than try to save it."

Mr Maddams said he was hopeful the dispute, for a minimum wage of £30,000, would be resolved before the second planned eight-day strike due to begin on Wednesday.

He said: "The Government seems to have totally lost the ability to negotiate on a sensible level. They might break us and make us go back to work but they won't break our spirit. I really don't see how the Government can come out of it well.

"If we lose this because of lack of public support or lack of Government support the eventual losers will be the public because you will see fire stations shut, you will see the number of firefighters cut and you will see the cover at various fire stations reduced.

"The public will get a smaller, much less efficient service."

Other firefighters were resigned to striking again on Wednesday and said they could not see an end to the pay dispute before the New Year.

Steve Huggins, chairman of the East Sussex branch of the Fire Brigades Union, said: "It has been very difficult. It isn't something we wanted to do, something we ever wanted to do.

"I just think now we are being pushed and pushed and no one is listening. I think the Government has got a completely different agenda to resolving the pay dispute.

"I think it could destroy the fire service. I think members are as resolved as ever that we have got to continue with this because the reforms they are proposing would lead to threats to public safety and threats to our safety."

"I hope there is a chance of an agreement soon but from what we gather the parties are being driven further and further apart.

"All we can do is hope it gets sorted before Wednesday."