An elderly woman who died in a blaze at her Highland home has been named by police.
Sheena Matheson, 74, was found dead by the emergency services in the bedroom of her house near Dornoch in Sutherland in the early hours of Monday.
A joint fire and police investigation will take place, with a report being submitted to the procurator fiscal.
It was the second fatal fire in as many days after a man recovered from a home by firefighters in Dumfries on Friday night was declared dead at the scene.
Assistant chief officer Lewis Ramsay, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service director of prevention and protection, said: "We are still seeing people killed and injured in fires that could easily be prevented and where working smoke alarms would have made all the difference.
"Firefighters across Scotland are out in their communities helping people stay safe, but reaching those at greatest risk is a constant challenge."
He said: "Older people, those who live alone, who have physical or mental health problems or issues with the misuse of alcohol or drugs - they're all potentially vulnerable to fire.
"There are many things we can do to help them stay safe, but we can't do them if we're unaware someone is at risk. We need the public's help to reach them before tragedy strikes."
The weekend also saw people receive treatment from firefighters and ambulance crews following house fires in Portree, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow, Millport, Danderhall, Wick and Dumfries.
Mr Ramsay said: "Where a home has working smoke alarms, the people inside get early warning of a fire while it's still small and before toxic smoke has filled the home.
"This means they are likely to get out with no injuries, or to need only precautionary check-ups for minor effects of breathing in small amounts of smoke.
"Without this early warning, though, the chances are a small fire will rapidly grow, fill the home with toxic smoke and produce devastating heat - all of which can prove fatal or cause lifelong and horrific injuries.
"It's unbelievable that anyone should go without working smoke alarms. They're absolutely life-saving devices."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article