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 The vacant Civic Stadium in Eugene was engulfed in flames shooting
twice the building's height when firefighters arrived on Monday
evening, police said in a statement.
The structure was scheduled to break ground on a major expansion and
renovation in July after a years-long public campaign, according to
local non-profit Eugene Civic Alliance.
"We will be looking at the cause. However, the dry condition of the
timber in this particular structure, it just took off, and there's
not much you can do about that," Eugene-Springfield fire chief Randy
Groves told local newspaper the Register-Guard. He said no one was
injured.
Police said emergency personnel were working to ensure the area was
safe before letting people back home, adding that 38 firefighters
battled the blaze for over two hours.
 Pictures published online by local media showed only a charred and
broken skeletal frame of the once venerable stadium.
Civic Stadium was built in 1938 by the unemployed workers who
enlisted in the Great Depression-Era Works Progress Administration.
It hosted high-school sports, rodeo competitions and was one of the
oldest operating Major League Baseball stadiums in the country,
according to its listing on the U.S. National Register of Historic
Places.
It was also one of only a dozen wooden ballparks left in the United
States, according to the national register.
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The Eugene Civic Alliance had spent years negotiating purchase of
the stadium site and developing plans to renovate the structure and
expand it to add additional fields. The group planned to break
ground on these upgrades next month, according to its website.
"Like the rest of the community, we are stunned by the fire today
that destroyed the Civic Stadium grandstand," the Civic Alliance
said in a statement.
"It is too early for us to know where we go from here. We ask for a
bit of grace and patience as we come to grips with this loss to our
community and to our effort," it added.
(Editing by Curtis Skinner and Ryan Woo)
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