Police in Edinburgh have confirmed that a person has died following a fire at a property in Fountainbridge.
Officers and emergency services were called following a report of an explosion and fire within a four-story tenement building on Fountainbridge at around 5pm on Tuesday 10 September.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service worked to extinguish the blaze and conduct a search of the building. During this time, a person was found dead within the second floor of the building.
READ MORE: Fire: 'Gas explosion' claim as Edinburgh tenement goes up in flames
The person has not yet been named as officers work to ensure all relatives are aware.
Due to the structural damage caused, emergency services have had to retreat from the scene whilst a thorough buildings assessment is carried out, which remains ongoing.
Local road closures are currently in place and Fountainbridge will remain closed until the building assessment has been completed.
Chief Inspector Scott Richardson said: “Our thoughts at this time remain with the relatives of the person who has sadly passed away. Officers and firefighters remain at the scene whilst the building is assessed for structural damage.
“The explosion and fire has caused significant damage to the building and Fountainbridge will remain closed for the foreseeable. I would ask that members of the public avoid the area, where possible.
“A joint investigation will be carried out in due course by police and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to determine the cause of the fire, which is not currently thought to be suspicious.”
The road remains closed from Gardner’s Crescent to Ponton Street, and the public should avoid the area, where possible.
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