Three restaurants were evacuated after a fire tonight (Wednesday).
Firefighters were called to the incident on High Ousegate this evening.
The fire started in the cladding on the exterior of Nando’s.
Nando’s and its neighbouring venues, the Social8 Lounge and Ate O’Clock Restaurant and Byron, were evacuated.
Two fire appliances went to the scene.
Crew manager Dan Thompson from York Fire Station told YorkMix what happened.
“The fire started in the cladding of Nando’s. We’re not sure how yet. We’re trying to work that out,” he said.
“Because there’s a basement underneath the floor, all the smoke had gone into that. It’s actually spread from this basement into next door’s basement, which resulted in everyone having to be evacuated.
“We’ve extinguished it from it outside, and we’ve sent two breathing apparatus into the basement to clear the area and ventilate as much as possible.”
He said the buildings were all safely evacuated and no one was hurt.
The Nando’s basement was smoke damaged. The fire damage to the exterior of Nando’s was fairly limited. No damage was reported at the neighbouring buildings.
High Ousegate was sealed off while fire crews dealt with the incident. It has since reopened.
An investigation into what caused the fire is continuing.