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Dubai Police reveal cause of Torch tower fire

Dubai - No casualties were reported, but 38 flats were damaged.

A burning cigarette butt thrown from an upper floor caused the fire in Dubai Marina's Torch tower recently, a top police official has revealed.

According to Major-General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, Commander-in-Chief of the Dubai Police, the cigarette butt landed on a pot of plant in a balcony below, which caught fire.

The blaze then spread to the cladding of the building. According to him, the police confirmed this by throwing a burning cigarette butt on some plants at the police headquarters in an experiment. The plants caught fire and spread slowly, which means the Torch tower fire was a "smouldering" one.

No casualties were reported in the fire that was reported on August 4, but 38 flats were damaged.

Ibtisam Al Abdouli, director of criminal evidence department, said the police investigation of the fire was completed within 10 days.

This is not the first time a building has caught fire due to a stray cigarette butt. The 34-storey Tamweel Tower in Jumeirah Lake Towers caught fire after a burning cigarette landed on a pile of waste materials, igniting the fire that engulfed the building.

The Dubai Police officials were speaking during a dialogue session between the police, civil defence and private sector companies.

amira@khaleejtimes.com