Members of a stock car racing family have vowed to continue their business after a fire engulfed their yard in thick smoke and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Just after 2pm today, fire crews were called to a skip fire at Wainman’s Farm, off Low Lane, on Silsden moor, a site that includes caravan sales, stock car engineering and scrap.

An engine from Keighley attended, but once they arrived found it had spread beyond the skip and onto a nearby pile of tyres. Crews from Shipley, Bingley, Silsden and Skipton were called, and raced to the site down narrow, single lane country roads.

Thick black smoke could be seen rising high into the air.

The firefighters had difficulty getting water to put out the flames, as the site’s borehole was among the area engulfed in flames.

Neighbouring farms provided the water, with firefighters and Wainman’s staff using tractors to bring full containers and barrels to the site which then fed the hoses.

They were able to prevent the fire from spreading to the caravans or any of the stock cars, but thousands of pounds of tyres, a wagon and portable buildings, one including motorcycles, were destroyed.

Although the fire was contained, they were still dousing the flames well into the early evening.

Watch Commander Steve Moorhouse said: “We think it might have been caused by someone doing some welding, and it has led to the skip catching fire.

“Three buildings have gone, but we confined it and stopped it spreading.

“It took some time getting up here and then getting enough water.”

Alison Wainman, wife of site owner and stock car legend Frankie Wainman Senior, said they were lucky the fire didn’t spread, and they don’t think it will do much damage to the stockcar or caravan businesses.

She said: “Luckily we managed to get the paperwork out of the office before it burned down. We lost a Scania which would cost at least £12-14,000, and a lot of tyres, I wouldn’t like to think how much they cost. We’re not sure if there were any race tyres in that pile. The stock cars and the caravans are fine, thank god the wind wasn’t blowing the wrong way or it would have spread to the caravans.

“We should be ok, we just need to get the site cleared and get a new office, we’ll definitely carry on. The parts that were damaged weren’t to do with the main side of the business.

“When I first heard about it I drove to the farm and it looked awful, like the whole farm was on fire.”

Mr Wainman Senior added: “Luckily no-one was hurt, everything can be replaced.”