Second fire at Dubai skyscraper underscores safety failures at Grenfell Tower
By
Chris Marsden
5 August 2017
Dubai’s Torch Tower was engulfed in flames early Friday morning for the second time since 2015. According to Dubai officials, the blaze damaged 64 of the building’s 86-storeys.
The scenes filmed were a chilling echo of London’s Grenfell Tower inferno, with reports of burning cladding raining down from 40 to 50 floors high. Two cars in the parking lot were set alight by falling debris from the tower. So far, no official explanation has been given for the latest blaze in the building, one of the world’s tallest.
The earlier blaze in the United Arab Emirates’ largest city was attributed to the same type of cladding and insulation later used on Grenfell Tower, where a June 14 fire claimed over 80 lives.
No lives were lost yesterday at Torch Tower, or in the 2015 blaze that engulfed 60 floors—primarily because, unlike Grenfell Tower, the building’s luxury flats are fitted with sophisticated internal fire safety features. A two-bedroom flat starts at $500,000.
Friday’s fire at the 337-metre skyscraper began around 1 a.m. on the ninth floor. It was fought by firefighters from four stations who had it under control by 3:30 a.m.
The building is the fifth tallest residential tower in the world as well as the 40th tallest structure. But firefighters were able to fight the inferno from inside the building, while residents could flee via smoke-free, fire-free safety zones enabling officials to successfully evacuate the 337-metre building’s 676 apartments.
Yorkshire-born resident Lucy told the Daily Mail that she was woken by fire alarms at around 1 a.m. in her apartment on the 40th floor. In addition, the tower’s security team triggered a system which “gave an…