Roof fire throws rush hour traffic out of gear in Dubai

Dubai: Traffic was thrown out of gear during the morning rush hour yesterday after a fire broke out at a tower on Shaikh Zayed Road causing police to close a stretch of the key highway.

A Civil Defence team was at the site eight minutes after receiving the initial report at 4.55am that a blaze had broken out at a 30-storey tower under construction.

The fire started on the roof of the building, which had construction plywood stored on it while welding operations were in progress. Two minor injuries resulted from the incident and people were treated at the site.

The rescue teams extended hoses from their vehicles on the ground level to the 29th floor where the fire had erupted. The first firefighting and rescue team evacuated 10 workers and also coordinated the efforts with the workers' supervisors.

Construction wood piled on staircases and on the building's 29th and 28th floors along with strong winds, led burning splinters to scatter to the next high-rise building causing another minor fire, which was limited to some laundry hung up to dry on one of the balconies.

Evacuation

Civil Defence dealt with the fire in the second building independently, despite it being minor and the residents of the building were safely evacuated.

The flammable fabric - commonly used at construction sites - that was wrapped around the building, the wooden skeletons on the highest two floors, and the strong winds all contributed to the quick spread of fire to the 28th and the 29th floors. However, the fire was successfully put out in less than two hours.

Police had closed a part of Shaikh Zayed Road near the site for a short period of time when firefighting teams were dousing the blaze and diverted traffic to other routes.

"We closed the road in that area for a very short period of time for the public's safety because there were splinters falling from the building on the road," a senior official from Dubai Police's Traffic Department said.

Brigadier Rashid Thani Al Matroushi, Director of Dubai Civil Defence, said the workers had tried to put out the fire with fire extinguishers, but failed.

- With additional inputs by Daniel Bardsley, Staff Reporter