More than 50 firefighters tackled a major blaze at a north-east nature reserve last night.
It is feared that potentially hundreds of young nesting birds could have perished in the fire, which was spread by strong winds across several acres of land.
Emergency services were called to a mile-long wildfire on the Buchan coast, near St Combs. The area of sandy dunes is part of the RSPB Scotland-run Loch of Strathbeg site, a special protection area for wildlife.
Six fire crews from across the north-east attended at the scene just after 1pm. They were joined by forestry pods from Altens, Ballater and Elgin, as well as a welfare unit from Huntly.
The vehicles were forced to park on agricultural land more than a mile from the grassfire. All terrain vehicles were used to get fire teams to and from the site.
After most of the blaze was finally brought under control, a helicopter was called in at around 7pm last night to drop gallons of water on the final burning patch.
Loch of Strathbeg site manager Richard Humpidge believed that many birds, including sky larks and ringed plovers, would have been nesting on the dunes.
“The adults will have managed to get away quickly,” he said. “But any chicks or eggs will just have been left behind. There’s no way they will have survived.
“This is the time of year when the chicks will be hatching.”
Fire crews from Fraserburgh, Maud, Peterhead, Macduff and Ellon used knapsack sprayers and beaters to bring the flames under control.
Mr Humpidge said: “The fire has spread very quickly across 10s of hectares of land. They eventually managed to bring this under control, but had to bring a helicopter in to finished the job.
“We will spend the next day or so assessing the damage.”
Speaking from the scene, fire service wildlife project manager Garry Burnett said there was no risk to property or members of the public.
He said the fire was water bombed by a privately-owned helicopter, brought in from Nairn, to finally bring the blaze under control.
“The dry weather at this time of year means a heightened risk of wildfire in areas of grass, heather and woodland,” he said. “We want to make as many people aware of this to ensure they don’t cause a fire that could have devastating results.”
Around 260 species of bird are believed to visit the reserve each year, as well as 300 types of insects and 30 mammals.
The site is well known as a rest stop for thousands of pink footed geese which fly in from Iceland each summer.