Work to tear down parts of the Glasgow School of Art's famous Mackintosh building has begun.

Fears the fire-hit building is likely to collapse led to the decision to dismantle certain sections.

A huge fire broke out at 11.20pm on Friday, June 15, leading to a massive operation involving 150 firefighters to control the flames.

The blaze was the second in four years to hit the Mack, which was undergoing a multimillion-pound restoration project to return it to its former glory.

On Tuesday, work to dismantle dangerous sections of the building began.

Glasgow-based David Narro Associates and Reigart have been put in charge of the project.

Contractors said they would dismantle the walls "brick by brick" manually, using cranes and high-level platforms.

Dominic Echlin of David Narro Associates said: "The primary aim of the initial works is to make the building safe and structurally stable.

"It is important to understand that our agreed approach is the safest way to dismantle the dangerous elements of the building and, importantly, ensure there is no damage to nearby properties or risk to those working on site.

"The contractor is starting today to reduce the height of the high level walls on the south side of the building, carefully taking down damaged and unstable masonry.

"With the machinery brought to site the contractor can work on several 'fronts', so after a start today in the middle of the south façade, we will quickly move on to reducing height to the top parts of the south-east corner and east façade.

"Work will then follow on the west end and then parts of north façade."

He added: "This sequence has been determined so we keep the building as stable as possible and the dismantling controlled throughout the process."

The work is expected to take several weeks, and the council will assess whether to reduce its exclusion area around the building as the demolition progresses.

Several cranes will be placed around the Mack to allow the work to continue, with protection provided to neighbouring properties.