Firefighters managed to save a well-known furniture shop from serious damage after a blaze broke out inside.
Crews from across Aberdeenshire and Moray were called to Bremners of Foggie at South Street, Aberchirder at around 6.40pm on Saturday night.
The fire broke out in a workshop area of the furniture shop and removals firm based in the village’s old school.
Crews took nearly four hours to put out the blaze while police were enlisted to close off surrounding roads.
Business owner Willie Bremner, who is the fourth generation of his family to run the 129-year-old company, said they were “very fortunate” that the fire will not impact on their operation.
He said: “All the services were amazing. I’ve got to take my hat off to them.
“We’ve had a good look at the roof space and we’re very lucky the fire service arrived when they did.
“That is the beauty of having a local fire service, which we really do appreciate.
“We are very fortunate that it is the top building in our premises and it has a small workshop.
“We have very little stock in it at the time which didn’t hamper the emergency services.”
Arthur Kaup, 22, who lives next door to the shop, saw fire crews arriving to battle the blaze.
He said: “I started seeing smoke and it didn’t look too bad.
“Then they locked up all the roads.
“The Foggie fire fighters arrived and they put it out and they only finished at about 10.30pm.
“Nobody got hurt and that’s the main thing.”
A fire service spokesman confirmed details of their operation.
He said: “We were called out to a building fire on South Street, Aberchirder at 6.44pm.
“We had six appliances in attendance from Aberchirder, Banff, Turriff, Portsoy, Macduff and Cullen.
“It was a fire within the roof space of the building.
“The fire was extinguished using eight breathing apparatus, two hose reel jets and one main jet.
“The stop message came in at 10.30pm.”
