York team survey fire damage
Officials at York are assessing the damage caused by a fire in the Ebor Stand on Wednesday evening.
Five fire engines were called to the site just after 7pm to attend what North Yorkshire Fire Service described as a “quite substantial” blaze.
A number of people at functions in the £20m (€29.5m) grandstand were evacuated along with racecourse staff.
“Today is about investigating the damage and assessing what the position is going forward,” said clerk of the course William Derby.
“Our technical and facilities teams will be going through the affected area which is on the fifth floor.
“We have four goods lifts in the stand with a lobby area on the fifth floor and it is that area which has been affected, along with a control room at roof level on the floor above.
“It is behind the scenes really. You can’t smell smoke or see anything front of house, so to speak.”
Derby does not have any indication of what started the fire at present, but is instead focussing on a speedy recovery plan.
“We will have to assess any damage to the utilities now and all the other things that make the stand tick so we hope to know where we are a bit later in the day,” he explained.
“The fire engines have all gone but there are still a few firemen on site and it is just a case of tidying up really and putting up ’no-go’ signs in the relevant places.
“We don’t have any indication what caused the fire – it is too early to say.”
York are due to host the popular John Smith’s Cup meeting next Friday and Saturday and Derby was keen to underline no problems are anticipated.
“There’s no reason to think next weekend’s meeting will be affected,” he added.
“We have two functions going on in the other stands today but obviously we have cancelled the third that was due to be held in the Ebor stand.
“There were two functions planned last night and although that was for a total of 500 people, there were probably only about 60 or 70 people actually there as it was early in the evening.
“They were all evacuated safely and the North Yorkshire Fire Service and the racecourse team did a fantastic job.”
