A roof fire that badly damaged a house in Glenbervie probably started in the chimney flue because of a design fault.
Fire assessor Frank Burton said that although the flue had been cleaned regularly, the fire had started there before spreading through the roof void.
The distress the fire had caused the owners was made harder because they had taken extensive precautions to make the house safe when it was built five years ago, including installing a sprinkler system, smoke detectors and alarms, Mr Burton said. Even those safety measures could not prevent the fire spreading through the ceiling, after a number of design faults had come together. Owner Shane Heswall said that when the roof was rebuilt sprinklers would be installed in there too.
No one was hurt in the fire that four appliances, including a water truck, attended in the early hours of Monday morning.
The fire was mostly contained in the ceiling of the 460sq m house but it did break into one room, where sprinklers helped stop it from spreading.
