Fire damages Caulfield stands, treated as suspicious

A fire has broken out in the Norman Robinson stand at Caulfield racecourse on Tuesday morning, with the blaze being treated as suspicious.

Fire fighters were called to Caulfield shortly after 6:00am on Tuesday with one stand ablaze, incorporating seating and hospitality areas.

No one was injured however Victoria Police confirmed the fire is being treated as suspicious and a crime scene has been established. Fire crews were able to control the blaze shortly after 7:00am.

Racing is schedule for the Caulfield Heath track on Wednesday and the Melbourne Racing Club is likely to move the meeting to Mornington, with MRC chairman John Kanga thankful that no one was injured.

“It’s been contained, I’m not an engineer but it looks like it’s all reparable, I’m sure our guys will salvage what they can, it’s tragic really,” Kanga told RSN.

“When I got here it looked like the Hiskens stand and the Norman Robinson were up but luckily the fireies have been able to contain it to the Norman Robinson stand.”

“It started on the deck outside the bar… there’s significant water damage to that bar and the medallion bar underneath it.”

“You can replace buildings but you can’t replace human lives.”

Incident controller at Fire Rescue Victoria Dennis Smith spoke to media at Caulfield, suggesting it could have been much worse.

“Thankfully with their quick work and some really good work from the internal fire systems, they were able to stop it from spreading to the adjoining grandstands,” Smith said.

“We were lucky… there were a few committee members milling around, a few workers arriving on scene but thankfully no impact to the community doing exercise and definitely no horses which is great news.”

How long it takes to rebuild the grandstand remains to be seen, with the MRC hopeful things can be back to normal before the Blue Diamond series, one of their major carnivals.

“That section will be out of action for some time… I don’t believe they’ll have to knock any components down of the brick area but because it is timber, it’s unlikely that area will be able to be repaired, they’ll probably have to replace that section,” Smith said.