Fire leaves businesses in state of limbo

Mahmood Zadeh walks through the burned remains of his Abu Amer Furniture store in the Iranian Souk in Abu Dhabi.

ABU DHABI // At the Iranian souq near Mina Port, it looks like the fire just happened yesterday. Yet it has been more than six weeks since the mid-August blaze gutted furniture shops and kitchen wholesalers and caused millions of dirhams in damage. The fire scene has been left untouched while police and insurance workers conducted their investigations. Now owners are just waiting for the final papers they need to file their claims, hoping insurance payouts will help them get on with the massive task of rebuilding their livelihoods.

Yesterday, inside the charred skeleton of Mahmood Khoory's Abu Amer Furniture shop, blackened bed frames, sofas and wardrobes sat amid the ashes. Scorched carpet rolls stuck out from the window frames and steel bars, warped by the heat of the fire, hung in a tangled mass from the roof. Sinewed carpets, still perfectly rolled up, protruded from the window frames and steel bars, warped in the heat of the blaze hung limp, like huge tangled spiders legs, from the roof.

Mr Khoory, who owns four furniture shops in the city, shook his head as he pointed to several metal bed frames, leaning against the store's broken-out front window. "These are all that remain," he said. "The estimated cost of the damage is about Dh1.8 million (US$490,000). Ninety-five per cent of the stock has been damaged - mattresses, beds, wardrobes, everything." The affected businesses - four stores so large they cover almost an entire block - have been forced to put their stock in piles outside. At Mr Khoory's, orange tarpaulins cover boxes of furniture he and his staff must move for sale at other stores.

"I have nowhere to put it," he said, smiling sadly as he stepped over some half-melted shelves. "Before it would be kept here." Like the other owners, Mr Khoory, who lost Dh800,000 last month, has found his trade all but halted. Asked how the fire has affected his trade he took out his accounts book and smiled again as he pointed at the blank pages. "The insurance company has been to make an assessment so now we are just waiting for the police papers," he said. "I hope that when I get the insurance money, then I will be able to rebuild."

To the left, at the kitchen wholesalers Al Fateh Trading, the scene was similarly depressing. Rows and rows of pans, rubbish bins and other household goods sat in the sun. Staff at its adjoining store, which was unaffected, said there was about Dh3m in damage. "It was a huge fire," said one worker. "Now we must use this smaller shop until the insurance is finished." At the other end of the row of affected shops, Ahmad Sqdaa works for Abdul Hameed Khoory Trading, where more than 60 people escaped unhurt from the fire. The store has not been able to do any trade since. In one of several now indistinguishable small rooms at the back of the store, Mr Sqdaa pointed to a metal frame in a corner.

"That was the television," he said. Next door, two safes sit, burnt, opposite the door alongside a burnt chair and desk. The melted key pads of a photocopier and two fax machines lay on the floor and an air conditioning unit sits crumpled and tired on the right wall above two burnt sofas and the skeleton of a wall-mounted flat-screen television. Though he did not yet know the extent of the damage, he walked through piles of charred kitchenware that gave some indication.