A Teesside businessman who was in the Dubai building which caught fire on New Year’s Eve says he had a “lucky escape”.
Returning to view The Address Downtown Hotel the day after the spectacular fire, Richard Upshall was astonished to see one side of looking completely unscathed. But the day before, Mr Upshall, who has several business and charity interests on Teesside, was dining in one of the hotel’s restaurants when the huge blaze took hold on a floor further up, causing devastating damage to that side of the building.
Mr Upshall, executive chairman of Stockton-based OES Oilfield Services, is an entrepreneur with a portfolio of business and leisure enterprises under the RU brand, but is based in Dubai and spends several months of the year there.
That’s where he chose to see in 2016 with friend Leonna Mayor, a former flat racing jockey and an ambassador for RU:Activesports.
But as they dined on the restaurant’s sixth floor, burning debris began falling past the small terrace they were seated at and on to private gardens below.
Mr Upshall told The Gazette: “Reflecting now, we really did have a lucky escape. We were sat on the terrace that was completely destroyed.
“Because it was only on the facade for the first 30 minutes, everyone got out. There was no-one really below the hotel as it is set in private grounds.”
At first, Mr Upshall thought the burning debris may have been part of a precursor to a massive fireworks event being held later at the world’s tallest building, the nearby Burj Khalifa. But when people started shouting and pointing above them, he knew something was wrong.
Yet as he and Leonna made their way from the building, he says no fire alarms sounded and staff continued serving meals, seemingly unaware a fire was raging above them. He also saw a man trying to activate the fire alarms.
He said: “As we were walking through, we said to people ‘you need to leave right now, there’s a fire’.”
But Mr Upshall says the atmosphere remained calm and orderly, and praised the Dubai authorities for blocking off the area near the hotel to prevent “mayhem” in the streets below. He says it was also lucky most people had congregated in the area of the Burj Khalifa rather than near The Address, and that the fire flared on the outside of the building, giving people valuable time to get out safely.
In the confusion, he initially feared there may have been a terrorist attack, admitting “Paris was on my mind”.
He added: “There was a sequence of events that meant everybody involved, and Dubai itself, was very lucky that there weren’t mass casualties.”
And he says that when he went back to the scene to collect his car the day after, he was amazed to see the contrast between the undamaged and the devastated sides of the hotel. He said: “The whole of one side was black and burned out and there was still a really acrid smell of smoke in the air.
“It could have been an absolutely unmitigated disaster. We’re all really lucky.”
The full article can be read here.