Fire crews spent 30 hours battling a major blaze which broke out by the shores of Loch Ness.
The wild fire, which destroyed a huge area of grass, heather moorland and trees, was one of two large-scale incidents in the north at the weekend.
Another blaze on the Scoraig peninsula in Wester Ross came within yards of remote properties and destroyed 30 acres of gorse, an acre of plantation trees and two acres of wild trees.
Last night fire chiefs praised the “tireless” efforts of crews and urged people to act responsibly in the countryside.
The blaze on the south shore of Loch Ness, near Torness was finally extinguished around 9.15pm on Saturday after the alarm was raised around 3.50pm on Friday.
A helicopter was drafted in on Saturday morning to water bomb the area while crews from Newtonmore, Cromarty, Invergordon, Balintore, Carrbridge, Beauly, Grantown, Inverness, Nairn, Foyers, Fort Augustus and Drumnadrochit used fire beaters, knapsack sprayers and jets on the ground.
The Scoraig blaze was reported around 2.30pm on Friday and required a joint effort from the emergency services with a lifeboat crew from Lochinver ferrying firefighters from Ullapool to the scene.
Along with teams from Aultbey, Achiltibuie, Gairloch, Torridon, Invergordon and Cromarty, they managed to extinguish the flames by 10pm.
Noel Hawkins, 44, who works on a Summer Queen cruise ship, passed the peninsula on Friday with a boat full of shocked tourists.
Yesterday said he was hopeful that native wildlife had managed to flee in time.
“White-tailed sea eagles live along the coast there and smoke was belching out,” he said.
“We haven’t seen them since the fire, but we sometimes don’t see them for weeks so we’re hoping they flew up into the mountain and will be back soon.
“All the livestock in the area is free range so hopefully they got themselves out of the way.”
He added that the wildfire got to within 20-30 yards of the nearest property.
Assistant Chief Officer Robert Scott, chairman of the Scottish Wildfire Forum and director of service delivery in the north, said fire crews had “worked extremely hard” to deal with the two blazes.
He said: “Their tireless work helped to reduce the impact on the countryside and, during the incident in Scoraig, their efforts managed to help protect people and property.
“Protecting the countryside from wildfires demands that everyone recognises the risk and takes responsibility for preventing fires breaking out in the countryside and areas of grassland.
“We want people to act responsibly in a countryside environment, such as properly disposing of smoking materials to prevent these fires happening in the first place.”