For those with short memories, almost the exact same fires occurred on:
28th Apr 2012 - Al Tayer Tower (
near Al Nahda Park) / Sharjah
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA3RzJ6wyM
17th Nov 2012 - Tamweel Tower (
JLT) / Dubai.
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L3TUzZU7Ys
21st Feb 2015 - The Marina Torch / Dubai
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmrVe3CwYVw
There may well be others that I've missed?
Many (
most) high-rise buildings in the UAE use external cladding panels with thermoplastic cores, i.e. panels that consist of plastic / polyurethane fillings sandwiched between aluminium sheets. Such cladding is not necessarily hazardous, but it can be flammable under certain circumstances; and (
depending on a skyscraper's design) those panels may channel fire through the window frames and thence into the interior of a building.
In 2013 the UAE revised its building safety regulations, requiring that cladding on all
new buildings (
those over 15 meters / 50 feet tall) be fire-resistant. However, those regulations do not apply retrospectively, i.e. they do not apply to buildings erected prior to 2013, and therein the vast majority of the UAE’s skyscrapers fall outside of those 'new' regulations. E.g. The Address Downtown was completed in 2008 and thus did not have to comply with the 2013 building regulations.
Ah well, they do say that art mimics life, wherein it looks like they got it right in 1974 film:
The Towering Inferno... and, until they fix and / or replace such flammable external cladding, there will be more to follow!