A woman has described the horrifying moment she looked out of her house and saw the garage across the road engulfed by flames.
Residents in Appin, Argyll, were evacuated after Gunn’s Garage petrol station and MOT station went ablaze just before 5am yesterday.
Three fire crews battled the inferno and poured jets over acetylene cylinders which were in the garage to stop them from blowing up.
Lesley Moore of Tynribbie Cottage across the road from the garage, was the first to call 999 and raise the alarm. She said: “I was sleeping in the attic because my sister and brother in law were staying. I woke up, looked at my phone and it was 4.50am.
“I turned over to go back to sleep and I could hear something. At first it might be gun shots because they sometimes hunt deer here. But there were too many of them. Next thing I thought was that someone was letting off fireworks.
“I came downstairs and looked through the glass door and I could see a massive ball of orange. I opened the door and could see a massive amount of flame. I started to shout ‘fire’ really loud and I phoned 999.
“I ran and knocked on Sarah Colthart’s door next door, she is a reserved fire fighter for Appin, her beeper was going off, she was one of the first ones there along with Alan Colthart, Ian McCorquodale and Iain Fergus MacCleod.
“Next thing our electricity went off and I could see blue sparks everywhere near the garage. I think an electricity cable caught fire.
“There were a couple of explosions. I know there were cylinders in there and there was also a car which would have had petrol in the tank.
“I was scared because I knew it was a petrol station. I was really scared for Sarah.”
A total of 25 people were evacuated from 16 households after a 656ft exclusion zone was set up around the garage. They were taken to the nearby Strath of Appin Primary School.
Ms Moore said: “Because there were a lot of tyres in the garage it created a lot of smoke. The roof was asbestos, so we weren’t allowed to leave the school until they were sure there wasn’t any danger from smoke particles.
“If the fire service hadn’t got cold water on those cylinders, it could have been a lot worse if they exploded.
“The car that was inside has been totally destroyed, there is no car left, only chassis.”
Fire crews positioned at strategic points outside the garage used several high pressure jets to douse the flames and cool acetylene cylinders stored inside the property.
Group Manager Steph McGrath, the incident commander, said: “The scale of the fire and the presence of acetylene cylinders made this a challenging incident and our crews worked well to bring it to a safe conclusion.
“They fought the fire with hand-held jets and one fixed in position on the ground. A thermal imaging camera was also used to monitor the temperature of the cylinders throughout the firefighting operation.”
Householders were able to return to properties as the fire was brought under control.
Officers from the Fire Investigation Unit attended the scene and will work to establish the circumstances surrounding the fire.
Firefighters were sent to the incident at Tyneribbie near the A898 Oban to Ballachulish in response to a 999 call made shortly after 5am.
Wholetime, retained and volunteer crews were all involved in the operation – with an appliance from Appin joined at the scene by two from Oban.