Firefighters who tackled a huge wildfire in Aberdeenshire have been praised for preventing it from spreading into nearby woodland.
Nearly 70 firefighters were called to Craigneil Hill on the Rickarton Estate, near Stonehaven, on Monday and battled for four hours to bring the blaze under control.
Yesterday the Forestry Commission, which manages the neighbouring Durris Forest, said it had been a “close escape” and they had been lucky that firefighters had managed to stop the flames spreading to the trees.
Calum Murray, a forest manager for the commission, dashed from Elgin to the scene after initial reports indicated the blaze was rapidly approaching the forest.
He said: “They were expecting it to get much bigger. They were quite concerned about it early on, so we were very lucky.
“It was a close escape. It just came up to the boundary of the woodland by the young trees and a recently-cleared hill, but didn’t get too far into that.
“It could have gone in there and once it was in the woodland it would have been much more difficult to control.”
About 20 Forestry Commission staff were sent to the scene to help the crews, bringing in extra firefighting equipment – on top of the fire service’s 11 appliances and support vehicles.
Mr Murray urged people to be on the lookout for wildfires as they explored the countryside.
He said: “Most people in Scotland think we had a fairly wet winter, but the north-east had a very dry one and the fire risk is pretty high, so I would urge people to be on the lookout for fires, because the sooner we get in there and tackle them the sooner we get them out.”
He was echoed by the fire service’s new wildfire project manager, Garry Burnett, who said: “Climate change, with warmer temperatures in the spring, is conducive to large wildfires.
“The warmer weather creates a far greater amount of vegetation, such as heather.
“All it needs is a source of ignition and very quickly we have an out of control fire.”
Group manager Mr Burnett added that Monday’s fire had the potential to be costly – both financially and in terms of damage.
“It’s dangerous enough when the fire is on the heather, but if it spreads into the trees there can be quite a bit of financial loss,” he said.
“That would a real concern for the Forestry Commission, it would have been a large financial loss for them if it had gone into the trees.
“But with the great efforts of the crews and 11 appliances – which is a huge response – we stopped it. Our teams did very well.”