Sheffield's Ski Village building destroyed by fire

Date: 29/04/2012. Story submitted by: ChrisMcCormack

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Sheffield’s Ski Village building has been destroyed after fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday.

Firefighters were called to the centre, off Vale Road, just before 1am and arrived to find the main wooden constructed building ablaze.

Five fire engines and 25 firefighters were called to the scene of the fire and they used two main jets of water to bring the blaze under control. No-one was inside the building and there are not believed to be any injuries.

Incident Commander Stuart Nicholson said (at 6am): “We suspect acetylene cylinders are inside the building but we have not confirmed yet if we have been able to put water on the cylinders. We are pumping around 3,000 litres of water per minute onto the fire from the River Don and have all but extinguished the flames.

”There is very little remaining of the building. It could be a further 24 hours before we can get closer to the site to carry out our investigation because of the risk of cylinders being involved in fire.”

A safety cordon was this morning (Sunday) in place due to the suspected involvement of acetylene but due to the location of the site no residential properties have been affected.

Fire crews could remain at the scene for up to 24 hours but the incident has now been scaled down to two fire engines.

The fire crews involved in the incident were from Central, Rivelin, Darnall, Elm Lane, Tankersley and Lowedges.

A picture from @danjohnsonnews can be seen by following the link below.

The Ski Village website is reporting that people with questions should email
vicky.lloyd@sheffieldskivillage.co.uk.

UPDATE AT 13.30, SUNDAY: SYFR reports that the 200m cordon is still in place because of the acetylene cylinders. Neepsend Lane is closed but could re-open by 6pm. Two fire crews are still damping down the smouldering ruin.


UPDATE AT 13.45, SUNDAY: Alex Horner, captain of the Sheffield University Snowboard Club and an employee at the Ski Village, said members of staff were on their way to work this morning (Sunday) when they found out about the blaze.

Speaking from a snowboarding competition in London, he said: “It’s a shock because a lot of my mates were on their way to work when they heard and it’s just slowly filtered through the grapevine.

“It’s very upsetting. I work there part time and I have a lot of friends who work there too. It’s a great team of people up there. The team gets on so well. I have always enjoyed working there, I’ve been there for two years and it’s very shocking to hear that there’s nothing to go back to.

“When I finish uni for the summer I was going to work there full time so it’s such a shame. A lot of students are part time staff and the full time staff have families to support. We have people on maternity leave who were planning to come back to work.”

The 22-year-old said there has been no word from the Ski Village’s management about what will happen next. He added: “Hopefully because the slope is intact they’ll be able to build a temporary building and keep things running. I’d like to think it still has a future because it’s very important in Sheffield for a lot of people.”

UPDATE AT 18.30, MONDAY: The one crew that remained at the scene this morning has now left and the investigation is underway. The site is being treated as a potential crime scene and CCTV is being examined to determine what, or who, started the devastating fire.

New photos taken by the fire crew yesterday evening have been added below.

Additional info

Address: 4 Vale Road Sheffield South Yorkshire S3 9SJ

Tags: sheffield ski village, fire, ski village destroyed

Web link: http://pic.twitter.com/53dUVGKi