Saved from the flames

Helicopter pulls three from makeshift homes on the rooftop of a burning building in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi // A young girl and two adults were airlifted to safety by helicopter today in a dramatic rescue from the roof of a blazing 16-storey apartment block in the centre of the capital.

The fire is thought to have broken out at around 12.45pm in what appeared to be makeshift rooftop accommodation on the Fathima Supermarket building in Airport Road. Thick smoke quickly engulfed the roof as the fire took hold in the 15th and 16th floors. Firemen, hampered by parked cars and hundreds of passers-by who were watching the drama unfold, managed to evacuate the building. Children wearing paper face masks to protect them from the dangerous fumes were led out to safety. A reporter and photographer from The National who had climbed onto a neighbouring roof spotted a Filipino man and an Arab woman and her daughter trapped on top of the burning building. They immediately alerted the emergency services. Within minutes, a fire engine had positioned itself below the blaze but its ladder was only able to reach the 13th floor - three metres short of the rooftop. At this point an army and a police helicopter were dispatched. On the roof the woman shouted in Arabic to the reporter: "Saedna (help us). There is fire outside my door and smoke is coming into my flat. I am too scared to go to the door." Four metres away, across a rooftop wall, the Filipino man, who had a white towel wrapped around his head to protect him from the smoke, yelled: "I was asleep and just woke up. I can feel the heat and can't get close enough to the door to shout to the firemen." Minutes later the police helicopter carefully manoeuvred into place and a rescuer winched the young girl and then her mother to safety. A larger helicopter from the UAE armed forces picked up the man. Its strong downdraught dislodged a satellite dish that fell to the ground. Nour Omar, who lives on the 10th floor, said: "I was sleeping when I woke up and saw smoke outside my window. I ran to wake up my mother and sister and dialled 999 and was told to get out of the building as quickly as possible." While the cause of the blaze remains unknown, a woman resident, who asked not to be named, said she had heard it started in a faulty air conditioning unit in one of the houses built on the roof. A man who gave his name as Nishab, who has worked in the supermarket on the building's ground floor for four years, said it was an old structure. The makeshift rooftop dwellings were apparently jokingly referred to as "the penthouse" and one or two were occupied, he added. It took firemen about an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze. No one was killed, although several residents and two firemen were treated at Sheikh Khalifa Hospital. Several firemen were also treated at the scene suffering from exhaustion attributed to smoke inhalation and their day-long Ramadan fast. Mohammed al Niami, head of Abu Dhabi's Quick Intervention Team, a new rescue unit trained to tackle large-scale emergencies, said his first priority was to evacuate the top two floors of the building, which were engulfed in smoke and ash. "We didn't have any problems fighting the fire because it was under control. Smoke was the main problem." He added that several firemen had collapsed. "It was in Ramadan and they were fasting and they needed water," he said. "Some of them collapsed unconscious because they were fasting. It was a small problem - they were given food and water." The large-scale emergency required co-operation from several branches of the Abu Dhabi emergency services. Eight fire engines from five stations across the city attended the scene with a number of ambulances and two "bus" ambulances, provided by the Emergency and Public Safety Department, to treat light injuries. "There was good co-operation between us and civil defence, the owner of the building and the owners of the helicopters," said Mr Niami. Jane, a resident in a neighbouring building who refused to give her last name, reported seeing emergency vehicles struggle with the chaotic parking outside apartment block. "I'm really concerned," she said. "Fire trucks and ambulances should be able to come through. In case of emergencies, how are people supposed to get there?" * Essam al Ghalib, Matt Kwong, Matt Bradley and Daniel Bardsley contributed to this report. Did you see the fire? Send us your photographs of the blaze to the [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail]