THERE were fears last night that more than #1m of whisky had been destroyed in a whisky bond blaze near Loch Lomond.
It took more than 50 firefighters over five hours to bring the fire in a warehouse owned by the Loch Lomond Distillery Company in Alexandria under control.
A company director said about 2000 casks of malt and grain whisky had been lost. He said it would be a ''conservative estimate'' to say losses of over #1m had been suffered.
No-one was injured in the blaze which was reported just after 6pm. More than 50 firefighters fought the outbreak in the two-storey building, which a Strathclyde Fire Brigade spokeswoman said was brought under control just before 11pm.
The director said 20 people were employed in the area where the fire broke out and added that the cause was under investigation.
He said the five directors of the company were ''shocked'' by the incident which had completely destroyed the warehouse. The company has a total of about 20 warehouses on the Alexandria site.
Mr Campbell Evans, of the Scotch Whisky Association, said the fire was ''very serious'' because it would take several years for the company to replace the stocks lost.
Meanwhile, Strathclyde Police were last night investigating the theft of an articulated lorry containing about #250,000 worth of spirits from a business park in the north-east of Glasgow.
Police said the lorry was stolen some time between 4am and 6am yesterday from the Buchanan Business Park in Cumbernauld Road, Stepps. The tractor unit was recovered later in the Bellshill area but the trailer and spirits have not yet been found.
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