Fire strikes another tower in the Dubai Marina
Reporting from DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A fire broke out Sunday at another high-rise tower in the Dubai Marina, just days after a blaze struck one of the world’s tallest residential towers in the same neighborhood.
Authorities quickly extinguished Sunday’s fire at the Tiger Tower and said it injured no one. But it rattled nerves after Friday’s fast-burning inferno at the Torch Tower, which is across the street.
The fire Sunday began on clothes left on a balcony on the tower’s 53rd floor, said Capt. Amer Abdulwahab Qahtani of Dubai Civil Defense. He said investigators believe either an improperly disposed cigarette or combustion caused by the late morning heat, which was a sunny 109 degrees, ignited the blaze.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, Qahtani said. The Dubai Media Office, a government agency, said the “minor fire†caused no injuries.
Early Friday, an intense fire raged in the 86-story Torch Tower nearby. It was the second time in two years that the more than 1,100-foot tower has been ravaged by fire. The Torch, located in Dubai’s popular waterfront Marina district, also caught fire in February 2015. There were no major casualties reported in either blaze.
The Abu Dhabi-based, state-linked daily The National reported Sunday that residents of the Torch tower were informed in June that authorities had approved repairs to damage caused by the first fire, and that the building’s insurer was processing the claim.
No work appears to have been done so far to replace any of the building’s exterior cladding. The tower’s developer and management company have not responded to queries into whether the siding was replaced.
Dubai passed new fire safety rules earlier this year requiring buildings with quick-burning side paneling to replace it with more fire-resistant cladding. Authorities have previously acknowledged that at least 30,000 buildings across the UAE have cladding or paneling that safety experts have said accelerates the rapid spread of fires.
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UPDATES:
5:30 a.m.: Updated with the possible cause of the fire, other details.
This article was first published at 12:50 a.m.
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