Fire breaks out in Dubai skyscraper

www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35207451

A huge fire has broken out in a high-rise hotel in central Dubai close to the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa.


Burning debris could bee seen falling from the 300m-tall (1,000-feet) building, called The Address, as firefighters arrived at the scene.


It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.


The blaze erupted ahead of a major New Year's Eve fireworks display, due to be held at the Burj Khalifa.
Crowds gathering to watch the display have been asked the leave.


Fire appeared to have engulfed much of the building, which has more than 60 storeys.
There is no indication so far of what might have caused the fire.


The Dubai government tweeted (in Arabic) that the fire had started on the 20th floor.


A tourist, Michelle Duque, who is visiting Dubai, told the BBC: "All of a sudden we saw this huge black plume of black smoke coming between the Khalifa Tower and the hotel.


"The flames burst out really big and before we knew it the whole of the Address Hotel was covered in orange flames."

In my family we have a standing rule when checking into a hotel/motel with inside-opening room doors (as opposed to doors that open directly to the outside parking lot) -

The first thing when entering the room is to clear it with gun in hand.

The second thing is to go into the hall and count the number of doorways between our room and the fire exit. You need to count them because you may be crawling to the exit on hands and knees thru a dark smoke-filled hall.

The third thing is to go to the fire exit and make sure it opens.

The fourth thing is to locate the nearest fire extinguisher or hose.

We always keep our keys and wallets by the room door in case we have to get out in a hurry.

And lastly, we never, never, ignore a fire alarm in any building. I have been in 'important' meetings at work when the alarm went off. "Oh, it's always doing that." Everybody else just sat there. I got up and left. I caught hell for it later, but the budget meeting just isn't that important.

I had to go to meetings and seminars in many hotel conference rooms. The first thing I always did was find the fire exit.

White Plains, NY Stouffer's Hotel Fire, Dec 1980

VICTIMS DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE.


White Plains (AP) -- Business executives gathered for meetings at a hotel here "didn't have a chance" when an electrical fire raced through conference rooms with heat so intense it melted walls, fire officials said.

The blaze yesterday at the suburban Stouffer's Inn killed 26 people and injured at least 40.
"The fire was so strong, so fast, that it was like a bomb exploding," said FRANZ EICHENAURER, an executive chef for General Foods.

"It appears it flashed up suddenly and these people didn't have a chance," said Purchase Fire Chief ROBERT MAKOWSKI.

One Woman Dies.

GARY PAPARO, the Westchester County medical examiner, said today the 26 victims worked for Arrow Electronics Inc. and Nestle Co. Inc. One was a woman and the other 25 were men.

The medical examiner estimated it will be two to four days before names are released.

PAPARO also said all died within two or three minutes of the start of the fire and were killed by smoke inhalation with carbon monoxide in the smoke.

"The bodies were cherry-red and showed inhalation of soot deep into the airways of their lungs" characteristics of death by smoke poisoning, PAPARO said.

"Charred badly"

Story continues at -

www3.gendisasters.com/new-york/4265/white-plains,-ny-stouffer%2526%2523039%3Bs-hotel-fire,-dec-1980

Really! Better try lodging on the other side of the tracks...

So if the staff made a mistake and gave you or somebody else the wrong keys, somebody might be suprised by a person suddenly getting in his/her room with a gun in hand... I can see a unwanted escalation potential there.



Depends on the work environment. In some cases you risk getting fired for ignoring fire alarms. I know locations, were you are welcomed, than emergency exits locations and evauaction zones are pointed out (which is also printed on the backside of the visitor pass, which needs to be worn all the time). Than they start the meeting.

Is the personal security situation in the USA that bad where people have to use a gun to enter a hotel room? If this indeed the case and considered normal behavior then I would be a lot more worried about being shot then the hotel catching on fire.

I travel quite a bit for work and have been through two hotel fires, both in the middle of the night while sleeping.

• I always count the doors to the fire exit.
• The only fire exit I ever found that wouldn't open was in the UK, and I kicked the door open, breaking the lock, during what turned out to be a fire drill. I dared the building owner to make an issue out of it (it was a lot of years ago, and it's possible I wasn't as pleasant about it as I could have been). In the US I don't worry about hotel fire escapes being locked.
• I do check for fire extinguisher locations, but keep in mind that if you can't knock a fire down with a single extinguisher, the correct protocol is to drop the fire extinguisher and run away screaming like a little girl.
• I always have pants, shoes, shirt, and appropriate outerwear lined up and ready to go before I go to sleep in a hotel. I also set up a flashlight on moonlight mode, somewhere that I can see it from the bed. It's near my wallet, keys, shoes, and so forth.
• At offices, conferences, and the like, I never leave my keys or wallet behind anywhere, not even at my desk. If a fire alarm goes off while away from your desk, being able to get in my car to stay warm has made a big difference for me a few times.

Never ignore a fire alarm.

Speaking for myself, I won't stay at a hotel where I think I might need to draw my gun to enter my room. I've walked out of hotels where the security situation wasn't what I was expecting.

No, the security situation has never been that sad at hotels that I stay in... Just my experience.

Reminds me of a situation in college. In the building with the cafeteria, there was a period of time in which there were false alarms all the time. It got to the point the students didn't even flinch. They kept on eating.

Jeanette Isabelle

A really class establishment would perform the room clearance for you - no extra charge, although it would probably be a good idea to generously tip the people doing the clearance.

Perhaps there is a business opportunity here - "Who Knows What Lurks Within? Room Clearance Executed While U Wait!! Bang Up Job Guaranteed! (and we clean up all blood stains gratis)"

I remember the first time the alarm went off. The students actually got up from their chairs though there was some confusion. Was this real, a fire drill or a faulty alarm? Before anyone exited the building, a staff member came in the cafeteria and said it was a false alarm. We returned to our seats.

Jeanette Isabelle

BTDT Alarm went off, didn't see/smell smoke, went back to eating. Turned out some joker pulled the alarm for a prank. At the time, knee was messed up and I wasn't going anywhere I didn't have to, fast or slow.

Unfortunately, the 'personal security situation' in USA hotel rooms is hard to know when one is traveling in 'Terra Incognita.' Although most hotels these days use a computer-enabled card to enter the room, I prefer to see for myself. Colonel Jeff Cooper had rules for safe gun handling. The first was: "ASSUME THAT ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED. The only exception to this occurs when one has a weapon in his hands and has personally checked its condition. As soon as he puts it down, Rule 1 applies again."

I apply this rule to my stays in any hotel/motel.

Granted, the chances of being involved in a fire are much more likely than in encountering a miscreant. Nevertheless, I would much rather have a gun and not need it, than . . . (you know the rest).

actually, they got everybody out.
no fatalities, only 14 injuries.

that's an outstanding outcome. could have been serious.

Pete

"Was this real, a fire drill or a faulty alarm? Before anyone exited the building, a staff member came in the cafeteria and said it was a false alarm"

During 9/11 when the first Tower was hit by the airplane, an evacuation of the second tower was ordered. People in all floors responded, but especially the upper floors. They began descending the stairwells. After a few minutes, a voice came over the loudspeakers in the second Tower telling everyone NOT to panic and return to their jobs. "The problem was confined to the first Tower, there was no need for panic or evacuation, and everyone should return to their desks and carry on working".

Many people responded ... and returned to their jobs on the upper floors of the second Tower.

ALL those people died.
You know what happened. Another airplane hit the second Tower.

How do I know this?

I know someone who worked above the 100'th floor of the 2'nd Tower. That person IGNORED the instructions to abandon the evacuation and they continued down to the ground ... down the stairwell. They ONLY JUST made it out of the building. But they did make it.

Personally, I wouldn't rely on some random worker announcing that a fire alarm was false. This has happened, and has cost lives, in several major structure fires. Unless the announcement comes from responding firefighters, I'd rather at least check things out for myself than not evacuate promptly, and the higher the floor I'm on or the bigger the building I'm in, the more seriously I take fire alarms.

In hotels, counting doors both ways to hotel exits and checking access to stairwells and locations of fireboxes and extinguishers is an excellent idea. Loss of visibility and orientation due to smoke, and perhaps power failure, typically happens before heat or flame would make evacuation untenable. But I habitually note exit locations wherever I go anyway.

I also pull a chair or something up next to my bed and drape my clothes with pockets still loaded with wallet, flashlight, keys, etc., ready to quickly don or at least grab on my way out. As a retired firefighter and paramedic, I can still get redressed VERY quickly!

That's what I do when I check into the executive suite at Mandarin Oriental.

Seriously, why is a "inside-opening" room more dangerous than an "outside-opening" room? I'd think it's the other way -- the former requires the bad guy to pass through the lobby either to or from the room. "Outside-opening" rooms offer direct access, and some corners of the parking lot may be poorly monitored. Such hotels also tend to be much cheaper, less patrolled, with a more problematic clientele.

If I were waiting for a responding firefighter, I would still be outside waiting.

The cafeteria is on the first floor and there is a set of doors directly to the outside. If we have seen or smelled smoke nonetheless, we would have made our way out those doors.

Jeanette Isabelle

The inside opening/outside opening is in reference to fire danger.

A good result, but I wasn't surprised. I saw the incident on the News early. I could see that the fire only affected one corner of the building, and there was sure to be a clear path to evacuate on the other side. I didn't expect anyone to die from it. The journalists were wondering about terrorism, but modern terrorists would have set multiple fires to block all exits.

Recent news reports are that skyscrapers built in Dubai prior to 2012 do not have exteriors that are "fire rated," i.e., the exterior building cladding is flammable, allowing the fire to climb up the exterior of the building. As one article explains:

"At the heart of safety concerns is the use of polyurethane and aluminium composite cladding on buildings throughout the height of the emirate’s building boom. The material was only outlawed by new regulations in 2013." See: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/emirates-skyscrapers-are-killers-in-waiting-says-fire-expert (my underlining in quote).

Note that polyurethane is flammable.