Staff shortages at Highland fire stations are preventing firefighters from attending emergencies.

Some crews are unable to attend incidents more than half of the time because they cannot fully man their engines, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service figures show.

Rural stations rely on part-time firefighters and problems attracting new recruits have left many with skeleton crews.

At least five firefighters must be available before an engine is allowed to leave the station.

A crew stationed at Bettyhill in Sutherland, which has five part-time staff on call, was unable to respond to incidents 57% of the time this year.

Another with six firefighters on call at Cannich, near Inverness, was unavailable 54% of the time.

Crews were unavailable more than a quarter of the time in Acharacle, Kinlochleven, John O' Groats, Dingwall, Invergordon, Kinlochewe and Foyers.

Where one crew is unable to attend an incident, another will be dispatched from the next nearest station.

The figures were included in a series of recent reports to Highland councillors.

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service local senior officer for the Highlands, John MacDonald, said: "In terms of rural areas we have less of a population to choose from and very often those people who have the ability to join the retained fire service are not able to provide cover during the hours of 8am to 5pm, due to having to leave their home location in order to fulfill commitments to their primary employers.

"These daytime hours are the time period which poses us the biggest challenge in terms of maintaining fire cover."

The SFRS said a newly-introduced RDS recruitment portal would help manage applications for part-time roles.