FIREFIGHTERS who attended a fuel spill with the potential to ignite and threaten a Sydney peninsula faced a choice.
Leave the two million litre tank to leak, evacuate the peninsula around Banksmeadow on Botany Bay and wait for a catastrophic explosion.
Or volunteer to wade through the fuel pool and repair the leaking valve.
NSW Fire and Rescue (NSWFR) station officer Ron Morasso looked at his colleagues and made his choice.
"I said to him, 'what was going through your mind'?" NSWFR commissioner Greg Mullins told AAP after presenting Mr Morasso with the fire service's highest bravery award.
"[Mr Morasso] said to me, 'I looked at my crew and thought - he has two young kids, his wife is pregnant, he is only young...it's got to be me'."
Mr Mullins said even a spark from a car passing the Caltex fuel terminal would have risked an explosion with enough ferocity to close Sydney airport and any subsequent fire might have taken days to extinguish.
Mr Morasso, who has since retired, was presented with the NSWFR medal for conspicuous bravery on Saturday.
Other crew members who responded to the spill in July 2013 also received commendations.
Meanwhile, two firefighters who rushed to the aid of a man on fire after a petrol tanker crash on Sydney's northern beaches were also recognised.
Mosman crew members Lloyd Mulder and George Cheeke stayed with the man, who crawled from his car after it burst into flames, until he died at the roadside last October.
Witnesses Andrew Cochran and Maria Tosone also received commendations for trying to pull the man and another person from the car on Mona Vale Road.
And 12 firefighters who responded to a fire at a unit complex in Bankstown in the city's west, where two women attempted to escape by jumping from a fifth floor window, were also among commendation recipients.
Mr Mullins said the blaze was so intense that firefighters' uniforms caught fire and helmets melted.
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