Gritters were just minutes away from treating an Inverness road that was the scene of a dramatic crash involving two fire engines, it has emerged.
Highland Council confirmed to the Press and Journal yesterday that the section of the B9006 at Culloden where the accident happened had not been treated.
The gritters had been travelling in the other direction on the road when its workers came across the accident, which occurred at 7.16am on Saturday while the fire engines were responding to a car crash.
Five firefighters were taken to Raigmore Hospital after the incident, and three remained there yesterday, although their injuries are not life-threatening or life-changing.
The fire service launched an internal investigation yesterday, and its mechanics were assessing whether the two £260,000 appliances could be salvaged, or would have to be written-off.
Witnesses at the scene suggested the road had been icy, but the service said yesterday that the cause was still not known.
Asked if the road had been treated that morning, a local authority spokeswoman said: “Roads were gritted according to Highland Council policy and priority on the morning of Saturday, February 6.
“The policy for gritting roads on Saturdays is between 6am – 9pm. Our gritter had been out on its policy route and was travelling from Croy on the B9006 when it came across the accident near Sunnyside.”
Local SNP councillor Glynis Sinclair questioned the council’s gritting regime.
“The guys went off the road at the farm just round the corner from me. They had hit black ice. Then the fire brigade was coming from the other direction and they hit black ice at Sunnyside,” she said.
“Come on, it’s February. Are they on a wing and a prayer with their gritting regime?
“The forecast certainly flagged up the night before that it was going to be frosty and here we are, the first week in February, and if they haven’t been out I want to know why because the B9006 is a rat-run for cars.
“I’ll be asking some very serious questions of community services if the road wasn’t gritted.”
A spokesman for the fire service said: “We have today started to launch our own internal investigation and we will know more in the coming weeks. We haven’t had a police report yet.
“We are assessing the damage to the two appliances. Our technicians are looking to see if they are write-offs or can be saved.
“We don’t know what the cause was at the moment.”