Torch tower tenant’s traumatic recollection

Dubai: A resident on the 58th floor of The Torch tower was deep in sleep as the fire spread from one balcony to another and was only made aware of the blaze when someone started banging on his door as firefighters struggled to put out the fire.

A fire broke out on the 51st floor of The Torch tower, located in Dubai Marina, early Saturday, with heavy winds spreading the fire to the rest of the building. The fire was put out successfully and all tenants were evacuated from the burning building safely due to efforts by the tower’s management, Civil Defence and Dubai Police. There were no casualties reported and only a few residents suffered minor health complications caused by inhaling an excessive smoke.

Recalling the incident, the tenant living on the 58th floor who wished to remain anonymous, realised that there was a fire when he was woken up by security frantically knocking on his door. He said that when he was told there was a fire, he walked towards his patio and noticed that there were flames coming from an apartment five floors below.

“I got dressed quickly and left via the stairwell and, as I was going down, I ran into four firemen who were coming up and told me to get into a lift, which I thought was a bit crazy,” he said.

The tenant mentioned that one of the firemen used a key for the elevator to start descending. Standing with other tenants a in the elevator, it came to a sudden stop, causing people to panic.

“All of a sudden, it just lurched to a stop, a tremendous lurch, I have never felt the lift shake like that before,” he said.

Once again, the fireman put his key back in to get the elevator to operate. However, it wasn’t very long until the elevator came to yet another stop. Water started to pour from the light panels in the ceiling of the elevator with the doors shut, trapping the residents and firemen in the lift.

“A group of us were trying to pull the doors apart and the water was coming through one of the lights in the ceiling of the elevator,” he explained. “It was pretty traumatic. Finally the doors opened and we just hopped out and made our way down the stairwell.”

At the moment, the tenant is back in his apartment after spending the day on the 97th floor of Princess Tower, where many residents were taken to rest until they were informed of updates on their apartments by management.

“I think it was beginning to descend into chaos because the staff were getting upset, a lot of people were getting upset, especially the ones whose flats hadn’t been damaged and were just told to ‘hold on’”, he said. “But overall the situation was handled very well. They kept coming to the 97th floor every 10-15 minutes with updates and offered people food and drinks.”

Though the wait was frustrating, he said that he has been allowed back home and his apartment was undamaged by the fire. When expressing his concerns, the tenant mentioned that he worries about any future occurrences from the aspect of the alerting system.

“The only thing that actually frightens me about living in this building now is the fact that the fire was raging for three hours and I knew absolutely nothing of it. No alarm went off when I went out to the hall,” he said.

He clarified that had the hallway alarm gone off, he still wouldn’t have heard it because it is only heard if he is awake and in the living room or the kitchen. His apartment alarm did not ring and he made an effort to voice his concern to management for appropriate adjustments to be made for the future.

“I was told that there was no fire in my zone, but in reality there are three damaged flats on my floor, I mean, how could that not be in my zone?” he said puzzled.

Many residents have since been allowed back into their apartments since these were not damaged by the fire. Others, however, have been told to retrieve personal belongings and stay elsewhere until the damage in their apartments is fixed.

Maria Botros is a trainee at Gulf News.