PICTURES: Fire rips through derelict building in Wick
A serious fire tore through a derelict building in Wick's Grant Street on Wednesday night as firefighters were called to two blazes in the area.
Fire crews rushed to the scene at around 10.15pm as some colleagues continued to deal with another incident at Bilbster, around five miles from Wick, when a garage with gas bottles stored inside was on fire.
Grant Street was closed off to the public as fire crews dealt with the blaze in a disused building which a neighbour called "an accident waiting to happen".
Witness Nick White, who took photographs of the blaze, said about the fire crews involved: "From my observations when they arrived they took control of the situation effectively and had the fire taken care of within moments of arriving."
A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) spokesperson said: "We were alerted at 9.47pm on Wednesday, June 14, to reports of a dwelling fire at Grant St, Wick. Operations Control mobilised four appliances to the scene, where crews worked to extinguish the fire.
"Crews left the scene at 1.54am after ensuring the area was made safe.
"There were no reported casualties."
A Police Scotland spokesperson said that Grant Street was closed for a period as its officers assisted SFRS personnel – the road has since reopened.
Lilly Hunter, who lives opposite the derelict building, said she called 999 at around 9.40pm after seeing a plume of smoke rising from the rear of the property.
"My bedroom window looks towards the building and I noticed a slight plume of grey smoke coming up from behind that house," said Ms Hunter, who initially thought it might just be people burning rubbish in the back garden.
"I saw it beginning to increase a lot and quite quickly so called 999, and as I was speaking to them the fire started to come through the windows."
Ms Hunter said the fire service crews were "quite slow" in responding to her call and it took around 30 minutes for them to arrive. This may be explained by the fact that four fire engines were already dealing with the garage fire, around five miles away near Bilbster, and crews were made aware that gas bottles were sited there.
The SFRS spokesperson added: "We were alerted at 9.30pm on Wednesday, June 14, to reports of a garage on fire near Whitefield Road junction on the A882. Operations Control mobilised four appliances to the scene, where crews worked to extinguish the fire.
"Crews left the scene at 1.30am on Thursday, June 15, after ensuring the area was made safe. There were no reported casualties."
Ms Hunter says that she has had to "chase schoolchildren out of the property" on Grant Street before and believes that the building should have been made safe years ago.
"I've often seen, mainly boys, in school uniform with their hoodies pulled up and accessing the property from the rear. I've chased them from the property in the last four weeks."
She thinks that the building was an "accident waiting to happen" and claimed its owners did not maintain the property. She also said she had complained to the council about the state of the property and that the local authority attempted to cordon off the building to stop children accessing it but the fence was "pathetic and not very efficient".
"There's a big yard behind that building and it's full of car wrecks, broken glass and all sorts of dangerous things. Highland Council and the Scottish Government have programmes on offer to take back derelict properties into public ownership and use them for some kind of community good, but I wasn't able to mobilise any help to work on an application for that."
Ms Hunter added that the fire service personnel worked very efficiently and with great speed to bring the fire under control. It is believed that the residents in the adjacent property were away from home when the incident occurred.
