Nearly 30 firefighters battled a blaze at an Aberdeenshire farm yesterday, with plumes of smoke drifting across a busy road.
The fire broke out in an outbuilding at South Hillbrae Farm at Bridge of Marnoch, near Huntly, at about 12pm.
Firefighters battled for almost two hours to extinguish the flames.
A witness said the barn, which was filled with straw and hay, was reduced to a burnt-out shell.
The roof of the building was also destroyed.
Thick smoke drifted across the A97 Huntly to Banff road, with police attending to manage the traffic.
One lane of the busy route was eventually closed to make space for the various fire appliances at the scene.
Station manager Myles Murray said: “We were called out to a well developed fire near Huntly.
“The building, which is approximately 20metres by 10metres (65ft by 32ft) was being used to store straw and hay.
“The crews worked extremely hard at the onset of the incident to stop the fire spreading to surrounding buildings.”
Four crews from Aberchirder, Huntly, Turriff and Banff used two main jets and a hose reel jet to contain the fire, and were assisted by a water carrier from Buckie and an incident support vehicle from Peterhead.
The crews were later seen hosing down the hay, and remained at the scene dampening down before giving the all-clear just before 2pm.
Nobody was injured as a result of the blaze, but one man was treated for smoke inhalation at the scene by paramedics.
Fiona Thomson, who owns Southills Stud at the family farm, was too upset to comment about the incident last night.
A neighbour, who drove past the property yesterday afternoon, said: “The whole barn was burnt down, or the roof anyway from what we could see.
“They keep horses there, so thankfully none of the animals were hurt.”