Two island women are determined to make sure that local animals can be rescued if they become trapped in a fire.
Tricia Brown and Pheona Horne who live on Shetland have raised money to buy life-saving equipment to help animals, as large as horses or as small as tortoises, to survive if they are caught in a blaze.
Tricia from Trondra – one of the Scalloway islands – and Pheona who lives in Aith on the mainland, organised car boot sales in order to buy the kits from the charity, Smokey Paws.
Each one costs £90 and contains masks in three different sizes, small, medium and large, as well as muzzles, a slip lead so that the masks can be put over the animals’ heads and oxygen tubes to connect to the mask.
Mrs Brown said: “I read about Smokey Paws in an article last year and thought the life-saving equipment was a really good idea.
“Pheona and I decided to do some fund-raising, mainly car boot sales, so that fire stations on the islands could be equipped with them.
“We raised money to buy one for Lerwick which we have handed over and another two for Brae and Bixter which have just arrived.
“A local construction company very kindly donated the money to buy one for Scalloway, so our ambition is for every fire engine on the islands to be equipped with a kit.”
Graham Reid, fire station manager at Lerwick, said: “The equipment works in conjunction with the oxygen resuscitation equipment we already carry on our fire appliances, so we can resuscitate a wide range of animals if the need arises.
“I have used it on cats, dogs, birds and even a tortoise to great effect.”