Sharjah: Victims of a spectacular Sharjah high-rise fire are calling for Sharjah Municipality to ban high-rise exterior aluminium cladding tiles that are certified as flammable.
In the days after fire ravaged Al Tayer Tower on April 28 — leaving 400 families homeless — residents told Gulf News as flames raced skyward they appeared to be fed by the tiles on the outside of the building.
Authorities later confirmed that exterior building materials were indeed flammable but declined to elaborate as to whether they were referring to the bitumen sealant applied to outer concrete walls or the actual metal cladding finishing tiles.
One woman who lives on the sixth floor of the tower is convinced if her building were not covered with the metal composite cladding, the fire that started on a first-floor balcony may have burned itself out at a lower level. A concrete or stone exterior would not have provided the initial smaller fire with the accelerant needed to climb higher and higher into the night sky, she said.
"I think these tiles should be banned; so many other buildings with these tiles have burnt recently. These tiles are flammable, it is not OK," she said. "The sheets were burning as they were falling, it was very dangerous."
A fire earlier this year at Al Baker Tower that started on the first floor erupted into a wall of flames at the rear of the building which is also covered in aluminium cladding although the fire rating of the actual tile has never been confirmed.
Another resident, meanwhile, who is looking for a new flat after he was burned out of his Al Tayer Tower apartment, said that municipal officials need to investigate the use of flammable tiles on high-rise towers.
"In my opinion, the fire spread because these [cladding] sheets are highly flammable," he told Gulf News at the scene in the aftermath of the blaze. "They should not use these sheets in the future to make it safer for people who live in these tall buildings. We've lost everything we own."
Gulf News took residents' concerns to officials who work at Sharjah Municipality and asked whether there are building codes in place that prohibit installation of non fire-rated metal cladding tiles on high-rises.
In an interview, an official who declined to be named, confirmed there is no ban on the use of non fire-rated panels on high-rises in Sharjah in comparison with international fire code standards that suggest only fire-retardant metal cladding tiles be used on buildings higher than ten storeys.
"We are responsible only for the design of the building and not the materials used in construction," the official said. "Contractors must provide [fire-retardant] certificates for each material used in construction for it to be approved by Civil Defence."
Lack of regulations to ban non fire-rated cladding tiles is a major headache for metal composite tile manufacturers in the UAE, said a top industry official in an interview with Gulf News yesterday.
On the condition of anonymity, the senior executive of a cladding tile manufacturer said the lack of laws combined with the use of less expensive tiles that are not made to withstand serious fires has become a national safety hazard across the UAE.
