RACE-GOERS CHEERED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 75, 25 February 1927, Page 4

RACE-GOERS CHEERED.

WHILE STAND BURNED UNDER THEM. CAULFIELD BLAZE. SYDNEY, Feb. 18. Though the floor of the grandstand was blazing beneath them, racegoers at Caulfield racecourse on Saturday refused to leave their points of vantage until the conclusion of the race. Some of them had narrow escapes. Starting in a small area where, if water had been available, it could have been cheeked immediately, fire destroyed the Guineas Stand; at Caulfield, a structure capable of holding 7000 persons, and worth £50,000. It broke out while the second race was in progress, and was so swift in its enveloping the place that it had'spread from the lower floor to the upper by the time the race had concluded.

Underneath the stand were refreshment rooms, in which afternoon tea was being prepared, and it is concluded that the fire started either in that room or through a cigarette dropping through the cracks in the flooring boards of the stand. At any it was noticed when it first started, bur . though the stand is fitted with fire f\hting hydrants, there was no water available to use in them.

Flames burst through just as the race started, and all those persons on the lower portion of the stand immediately left tho building and watched it burn. But the racegoers on the top deck were far too interested in the running, and they refused to believe that anything was amiss. They saw the race out, and then mado investigations. By that time the flames were showing up on the top floor too, and a rush had to be made by the back staircase to get clear. Firemen were on the scene early, but the strange lack of water handicapped them, and by tho time they had rigged a long hoseline to the Caulfield railway station, the flames had too good a hold to be checked. Anyhow,- only a trickle came through the hose from the station. The fire itself was merely an added attraction to the racing, as the programme was not interfered with in the slightest particular. While the stand was insured for £35,000, damage in full is placed at £50,000 by the V.A.T.C. officials. It is the second fire of the kind experienced by tho Caulfield racing officials, for on the morning of Caulfield Cup day, when Whittier won the race, the main grandstand was burnt to the ground.