Halkirk fire hit store owner hopes to open in temporary premises
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THE owner of a general store in Halkirk destroyed by fire fears it could be months before he is able to reopen.
But Hugh John Mackay hopes to secure a deal to relocate the shop to a temporary home in the village within the next few weeks while repairs are being carried out.
Emergency services were called to DY Forbes General Store in Sinclair Street on Friday morning after an electrical fire occurred and spread quickly in the office above the shop.
Fire crews from Thurso and Wick with an incident commander from Tain arrived at the building, where it took over 90 minutes to extinguish the blaze.
The first floor was completely destroyed by fire while the ground floor shop was reported to be 80 per cent smoke damaged.
Mr Mackay, who has run shops in Halkirk since 1966, said it might be some time before the store would be able to open its doors to the public again.
But he hopes within the next few weeks to find temporary premises to ensure Halkirk only goes a short period of time without having a village shop.
"Within the next week or two I am looking to open up at another place, but the store will be closed for quite a while," he said. "Upstairs and downstairs suffered a lot of damage and we can’t reopen the shop until major work has been done.
"We are looking at temporary accommodation on Bridge Street at the moment."
Sinclair Street was closed to the public for five hours while fire crews extinguished the blaze and carried out investigations into its cause.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: "The office was 100 per cent destroyed by fire and the ground-floor shop received 80 per cent smoke damage."
The fire was extinguished using water jets. Crews also used breathing apparatus and two thermal image cameras. A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said paramedics were called to the scene but confirmed nobody was hurt.
"We did attend to the incident and were on the scene briefly but nobody required any medical treatment," she said.
A spokesman for Police Scotland who was at the scene said officers were only present to assist fire crews by directing traffic away from Sinclair Street and added there were no suspicious circumstances.
While fire crews were carrying out investigations, engineers from Scottish and Southern Electric disconnected the power to 29 homes on Bridge Street and Sinclair Street for 45 minutes before isolating the connection to the shop to help identify what caused the problem.
