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Apartment gutted by fire; Sudanese family escapes

SHARJAH - A fire completely gutted an apartment in an eight-storeyed building in the Buteena area of Sharjah on Friday afternoon at around 3pm.

A Sudanese family living in the flat escaped the inferno with their lives, but their possessions were totally destroyed in the fire.

The cause of the fire was a short circuit in the air-conditioning unit in the children's room.

The family and their neighbours point the finger of blame for the extent of the fire damage to the slow arrival of Civil Defence units, which allowed the fire to grow and result in serious damage to the entire floor.

Mohammed, a resident in the building, said: "This fire was very minor. If it weren't for the slow response of the Civil Defence and the lack of fire safety equipment in the building, things would not have developed as they did. It was chaos - the fire fighters did not even have the right equipment, like enough oxygen masks or gloves."

Residents said that fire fighters did not start to arrive until 15 minutes after the neighbours made an emergency call to Civil Defence.

The first to arrive at the scene were ambulances, followed by two Civil Defence vehicles without adequate water supply to reach the seventh floor, where the fire was.

It took two hours to finally extinguish the blaze.

Captain Abdullah Darwish of Sharjah Civil Defence, said that the fire-fighting equipment inside the building was not working properly and said that landlords do not inform the Civil Defence of any defect or fault in the fire-fighting equipment in their buildings, adding that the fire safety equipment should be checked every six months.

He stressed that it was the municipality's job to check that all older buildings were fitted with fire extinguishers and fire-fighting equipment, adding that the Civil Defence makes sure all new buildings have fire safety and fire-fighting equipment installed during construction.

"This particular building did not even have an alarm system to warn residents.

"In addition, parked cars on the side of the narrow road made it difficult to reach the location," Captain Darwish said, adding that vehicles that violate fire safety norms and prevent fire fighters from doing their job should be fined at least Dh500.

A neighbour of the family in the stricken apartment said that one of her neighbours who had asthma was evacuated by a fire fighter who had to take off his breathing apparatus to place it over the asthmatic's mouth and come out through the smoke without an oxygen mask.

The fire fighter left the man's wife and their three children in the apartment, in a room, taking the asthmatic man down first and coming back for the others later.

Water flooded stair wells below the seventh floor, and many apartments, whose front doors were left open, suffered from water damage.

One of the building's residents hurt her back after she slipped in the stair well due to the flooding.

Residents had to wait for four hours after the fire was put out to get the power back and to be able to return to their apartments.

Lieutenant Humaid Saeed of the Civil Defence said that fire trucks arrived on time, but the building did not have any operational fire safety equipment, the stairs were narrow, and people that crowded the area and did not allow fire fighters to do their job properly.

"Our priority is always to save lives first and not worry so much about possessions," Lt. Saeed said.

No one was seriously injured or killed in the fire.

One Civil Defence vehicle broke down outside the building and is still parked there, awaiting removal.

• UAE