December 31 – Hours before the start of celebrations to mark the new year, The Address Hotel in Downtown Dubai catches fire. Fifteen people are injured, mostly from smoke inhalation, while another suffers a heart attack.
January 1 – The last of the flames are extinguished on the tower, leaving a charred husk. The hotel is closed by developer Emaar "indefinitely".
January 6 – Fire safety consultants tell The National that most of the towers built in Dubai use the same non-fire rated exterior cladding. The Address Hotel fire again highlighted the use of aluminium composite panels on buildings across the city.
January 10 – Emaar disputes claims from some hotel guests that they did not hear fire alarms when the tower caught fire.
January 12 – The National reveals how a "successful" fire test in 2007 on the exterior panels used on the hotel were "meaningless" because they did not test flammability. An engineer who oversaw the test said it focused on containment and not flammability.
January 12 – A senior member of Dubai Civil Defence says the cladding lining the exterior of the 63-storey hotel did not meet fire safety standards.
January 17 – Dubai Civil Defence says that the sprinkler system in The Address Hotel ran out of water 15 minutes into the fire on New Year's Eve. It was so intense that the system could not cope with fires on more than 40 floors.
January 20 – Dubai Police say the cause of the blaze was an electrical fault. They say no flammable liquids played a role in the fire.
nhanif@thenational.ae
