Fatalities Will Happen “Sooner or Later” Warns Fire Safety Expert After Dubai Blaze Resurrects Fears Over Flammable Cladding

The fire that engulfed a 63-story Dubai hotel on New Years Eve is a harbinger of fatalities to come, a leading fire safety expert has warned.

The fire, which rapidly engulfed ‘The Address’ hotel’s exterior shortly before midnight, is the third such blaze in as many years, resurrecting fears about the prevalence of highly combustible materials among skyscrapers across the UAE.

Sixteen people suffered minor injuries in the latest blaze and although there were no fatalities, a fire safety consultant with Gloucester-based CWB Fire Safety has warned that “there will be fatalities sooner or later”.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph Phil Barry estimated that up to 70% of Dubai’s high-rise buildings could be clad in polyurethane and aluminium composite cladding – a highly flammable material used routinely during Dubai’s building boom. The material was only outlawed in the Emirate in 2013.

“The basic rule is that the outside of any building over 30 metres – which is as high as any fire-truck ladder can reach – must be made of non-combustible materials because you cannot fight the fire,” he said. “Large numbers of buildings in the UAE do not meet that standard.”

Visitors to Dubai would find it difficult to find out whether their hotel or accommodation block was clad in flammable or non-flammable material. “It’s not obvious just to look at it,” said Barry.

IFSEC Global reported on the issue back in 2013. Claire Mahoney, editor at Security Middle East Magazine, wrote that “Cost-conscious developers have left a legacy of fire risk in many of the United Arab Emirates’ iconic high-rise towers.”

Former firefighter Barry also blasted lax fire safety inspections, which were often conducted by unqualified expats or undermined by corruption.

Tall British buildings have been required to comply with British safety standard BS476, which meets the Class ‘0’ standard stipulating “no surface spread of flames”, since regulations were changed in the aftermath of the 1973 Summerland holiday park fire on the Isle of Man, which killed 50 people and injured eight seriously.

The retro-fitting skyscrapers with exterior sprinklers or spraying them with fire-retardant materials is likely to be delayed until legal wrangles over whether developers or building owners bear the prohibitively expensive costs are resolved.

The cause of the Dubai hotel fire remains unknown.

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You can see a time-lapse video of the fire, which was captured by photographer Kirill Neiezhmakov, below.