An Aberdeenshire town centre was put on lockdown yesterday after a serious blaze devastated a family-run Chinese takeaway.
The emergency services were called to the Chinatown restaurant on Gordon Street, close to the town centre, at 1.44pm, following reports of a fire.
Six appliances, from Huntly, Insch, Aberchirder, Aberdeen and Keith battled the blaze for more than three hours, and parts of the centre of the community were cordoned off for the afternoon.
Dozens of residents looked on as smoke billowed out of the roof of the two-storey building, which has flats located above the takeaway.
The blaze was brought under control just after 5pm, and neighbouring properties were undamaged in the incident.
Qixin He, the owner of the Chinese eatery, stood outside the restaurant with his wife and three children and watched the firefighters tackle the blaze.
Translating for her father, Mr He’s daughter said: “I smelled smoke coming out of the kitchen, saw a fire and called the fire brigade.
“We have lived in Huntly for seven years, we moved here from Fujian in China.
“We feel horrible, and very sad.”
Incident commander David Meldrum explained: “We were called out to a fire in Huntly at around 1.40pm.
“On arrival, crews were faced with a well-developed fire which was in the kitchen area, but had travelled to voids in the building and was already in the roof space.
“We had six appliances here, as well as an incident command vehicle, a height vehicle and incident support vehicles – in total, we had around 50 firefighters in attendance.
“There was significant damage inside the property, mainly in the roof space, and there was severe smoke and water damage within the building itself.
“The flats above the Chinese were significantly damaged as well by the smoke, and we’ve had to cut away sections of the external roof.
“There were no injuries at all, no smoke inhalation.
“The neighbouring buildings were not damaged in the incident.
“The firefighters worked extremely hard under difficult circumstances to bring the fire under control and contain it.
“We have been speaking to the occupiers, and we have offered our support to them.”