A 51-year-old man has been arrested over a suspicious fire that damaged the Norman Robinson Stand at the Melbourne Racing Club's Caulfield racecourse.
Police arrested the man on Tuesday afternoon, less than 12 hours after a major blaze ripped through the grandstand, resulting in damage that could potentially run into the millions of dollars.
The man was arrested at Mordialloc Railway Station after reports of several grassfires in the area.
Earlier, fire crews arrived at the scene of the grandstand blaze at 6.20am after reports of a fire at the southeastern suburban racecourse and by 7.09am had the blaze under control.
Victoria Police confirmed no one was injured and the area was evacuated safely, but declared the blaze suspicious.
“A crime scene has been established. The investigation remains ongoing,” a police spokesperson said in a short statement at the time.
MRC chairman John Kanga told SENTrack that the fire had been ongoing for some time before fire crews arrived.
“It looks like it was in the wooden deck area of the Norman Robinson Stand,” he said. “It hasn’t spread. It looked pretty ugly for a minute there, but the fireys have it under control.”
“There is a lot of smoke damage, a lot of water damage to the bar below us, but I haven’t had access to it as yet.”
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He said that the structure of the stand appears to be unaffected.
“We will rebuild it to what it was,” he said.
Kanga said there was was no indication of how the fire had started but he was also concerned about smoke damage to the other stands.
It had been initially reported that the fire was in the Hiskens Stand, with Kanga saying when he arrived it looked like both grandstands were alight.
The Norman Robinson Stand, next door to the main Rupert Clarke grandstand, was constructed in 1960.
A midweek meeting scheduled for Caulfield's Heath racetrack on Wednesday has been switched to Mornington.
While the racing surface was not impacted, building surveyors, health officials and investigators continued to inspect the damaged area, creating logistical issues for the MRC.
"The MRC believed it was in the best interests of all parties to make the call now to transfer tomorrow’s race meeting to avoid any further disruptions for participants and patrons," a Racing Victoria statement said.
