DUBAI // A fire ripped through the upper section of a residential building in Dubai's Tecom area this morning. Fire officials were able to control the flames at 11.30. The fire is thought to have begun between 9.15 and 9.30.
"We saw smoke, heard the fire alarm and people yelling," said Fouad Foany, a resident of Saif Belhasa building. "It was a very big fire. The flames were leaping out. But the fire guys came quickly and put it out."
Large sections of at least 10 upper floors of the 13-storey Saif Belhasa building were charred.
The upper level balconies were blackened with soot as the fire tore through the structure. The heat melted and twisted the metal railings on the upper level balconies and large windows.
Police at the scene declined to comment or give a possible reason for the blaze.
A Civil Defence spokesman about 300 people were evacuated from the building."There were no injuries, the ambulance rushed there but no one needed hospital treatment," he said.
"The fire started in flat 407 and then it moved to all the flats directly above up to the 13th floor." The cause of the fire is being investigated, he said.