Authorities struggle to douse New Year blaze at Dubai hotel

The government in Dubai says efforts continue to cool down the scene of Thursday night’s massive fire in a luxury hotel.

Flames blazed through several floors of the “Address Downtown Hotel” which is situated just few blocks away from the iconic “Burj Khalifa”.

The building’s developer, Dubai-based Emaar Properties, which also build the Burj Khalifa, issued a statement thanking authorities “for their immediate and professional support”. The hotel towers over the Souq Al Bahar, a popular shopping area with walkways that connect to the Burj Khalifa and the Middle East’s largest mall, the Dubai Mall.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the fire has been contained, however.

Observers said smoke billowed from the hotel throughout the day today as firefighters continued to try to put it out. They’re a real estate titan in the UAE and have certainly felt the pressure to build bigger and better structures.

“Myself and a couple of friends has been planning to go there to watch the fireworks but we changed our minds at the last minute”, he added.

“If I go there, inside to try to go exit, I’m not going to die because of the fire”, he told CNN, but “because of the smoke”. But clearly an extremely frightening experience for everybody involved, and investigators now working to determine the cause of the fire, which incidentally, is the second major fire to engulf a high-rise in Dubai.

Despite sparking widespread panic in the United Arab Emirates city – and leaving 14 people injured – Alateeqi and his unidentified New Year’s Eve date look completely unfazed by the blaze, which burned for over 12 hours. It wasn’t clear if the Address Downtown was to be involved in the fireworks display.

Dubai officials said the fire originated on the 20th floor of the hotel and spread from there, but the cause of the fire is still unknown.

Around 1million people had gathered to watch Dubai’s award-winning fireworks show from the skyscraper. Hundreds were evacuated from the 79-story skyscraper, one of the tallest residential buildings in the world.