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5-star The Address Downtown Dubai catches fire as New Year Celebrations continue…

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2 January 2016

Fire that engulfed Dubai hotel could have been fuelled by flammable panels http://dailym.ai/1PBSQx0 

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The massive fire that engulfed a Dubai hotel could have been fuelled by flammable panels which clad the 63-storey skyscraper, it emerged yesterday.

The fire is believed to have started on a covered balcony a third of a way up the Address Downtown Hotel, possibly after a pair of curtains caught alight.

But it is the speed at which the blaze spread across 40 floors of the outside of the hotel which will become the focus of an investigation.
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Last night, experts warned it was only a matter of time before there were major fatalities from a fire linked to the non-fire-resistant aluminium composite panels.

They are made from a thermoplastic core – plastic that has been heated to a high temperature and then hardened – held between two sheets of aluminium. They are used for insulation and for cosmetic purposes as they are long-lasting and easy to maintain. But they burn quickly, causing fires to spread rapidly.

They were outlawed in Dubai in 2013 following a fire but the rules do not apply to buildings constructed before then and it has been claimed that up to 70 per cent of Dubai’s high rises may be covered with them.

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Survivor of Dubai hotel fire spends New Year hanging from balcony 48 storeys off the ground

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DUBAI (AFP) – Grasping the edge of a balcony 48 stories from the ground, just metres away from a raging fire, the photographer thought he may not live to see 2016.

“One hour, then that’s it, I’m dead,” he thought as he stood on the tiny sill of a balcony in Dubai’s luxury The Address Downtown hotel, attached by a rope to a massive window-cleaning platform.

Not long before, he had entered the balcony with a friend to take photographs of the nearby New Year’s Eve fireworks display for his newspaper.

But the night suddenly changed when a huge fire erupted in the hotel below them, engulfing several floors of the huge building in the heart of the skyscraper city.

“There’s a fire,” his friend shouted, rushing towards the nearest exit, before the photographer looked out and saw “smoke coming towards the balcony”.

Afraid that he would die from suffocation, and unable to see how he could escape, the photographer decided there was only one thing for it: to tie a rope from himself to a window-cleaning platform and hang off the balcony.

He rolled out some 30m of a heavy-duty cable from a nearby machine used by workers to clean the tower’s windows, attached it to his belt and photographing equipment and stepped off the edge.

The rope “was my saviour”, he told AFP, asking not to be named and explaining that the fire was less than 10m away from him at that point.
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Holding on for dear life outside the building, he began calling and texting his colleagues asking them to get in touch with the civil defence for help.

Civil defence representatives kept him calm as he waited to be rescued. “I was telling them I hoped to survive and see my wife,” he said.

More than half an hour later, he heard rescue workers approaching his floor.

“When I saw lights and heard the sounds of footsteps at the floor I was in, I started tapping on the aluminium to get their attention,” he said.

http://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/survivor-of-dubai-hotel-fire-spends-new-year-hanging-from-balcony-48-storeys-off

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Dubai government says there have been 14 minor injuries & one heart attack due to hotel fire http://trib.al/6oUbyRm 

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Guest at burning Dubai hotel has told Sky News how he carried his mother out of the building http://trib.al/TnGPjpO 

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