Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Huge wildfire cuts power to more than 13,000 people in the Western Isles

The view from Ardhasaig, north of Tarbert. The fires continued along the hill range past Tarbert to Direcleit.
The view from Ardhasaig, north of Tarbert. The fires continued along the hill range past Tarbert to Direcleit.

A large moorland fire cut power to more than 13,500 customers in the Outer Hebrides last night.

Mobile phone services were also affected on Lewis and Harris as a result of the blaze on Tuesday night.

The first power cut began just after 8pm and lasted around an hour.

A further blackout hit Stornoway and the surrounding area about 9.45 pm and lasted several minutes.

The original fault arose from the impact of a fire near one of the main transmission lines in Harris. Power finally returned to all areas around 11pm.

Network operator SSEN apologised to all affected customers for the inconvenience after flames from the spreading moorland fire a few miles south of Tarbert knocked out the main national grid power lines at Diracleit, running from South Harris to Lewis.

A SSEN spokeswoman said the fire service requested live electricity supply running through the high voltage overhead cable be switched off for safety reasons.

She said: “We’d like to apologise to our customers on Lewis and Harris for any inconvenience caused by the interruption to supplies.”

The islands’ electricity supply runs through a subsea cable from Skye, making landfall in the Bay of Harris.

The electricity is then carried through a 132kV overhead line circuit to Lewis.

Meanwhile other moorland fires hit Lewis.

Drivers were asked by police at 5.20pm on Tuesday to avoid the Pentland Road. The road was blocked by fire engines due to a grass fire on the moorland on the Carloway side.

Another blaze affected Great Bernera.

Craig Lauder, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s Western Isles station manager, said on Twitter:”Great effort from Stornoway, Scalpay, Great Bernera and Shawbost crews to control and extinguish a large wildfire on Isle of Lewis tonight at same time as crews tackled a series of fires on the Isle of Harris, big challenge for our Western Isles resources.”