Fire breaks out at Dubai's Jebel Ali port

The fire that sent explosions ripping through a chemical storage depot at Jebel Ali Port in Dubai early this morning has not spread to nearby sites and is now under control, officials said.

No casualties have been reported and the cause of the fire and extent of damage are still under investigation, said a spokesperson from port operator DP World.

The fire broke out around 4am in an open warehouse on the Chemstore premises - a hazardous chemical storage facility located near the Jebel Ali Port - and is the second blaze in two weeks at a cargo port in the UAE.

The fire division of the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) regulatory authority of Dubai World responded to an emergency call from Chemstore at 3.57am.

"Our firefighting units took control of the situation within 15 to 20 minutes of arriving at the scene, and were able to contain the fire within the Chemstore premises," said Ahmed Abdul Hussain, CEO of EHS.

"The situation is well under control and the impact on general safety and environment is minimal. The air quality and toxicity levels are being constantly monitored, and given the speed of the wind, smoke is being dispersed rapidly. There is no cause for alarm," Hussain added.

The EHS fire division deployed eight vehicles and 50 fire fighters to the scene while Dubai Civil Defence deployed its own four vehicles.

"Given the rapid spreading of the fire, our main objective is to secure the safety of the adjacent facilities by keeping the fire contained within the Chemstore premises. We have successfully done that, and are now waiting for the fire to burn itself out," said Nutankumar Manvatkar, vice president of Fire & Rescue at EHS.

A statement from Dubai Civil Defence said emergency rescue services and the fire brigade arrived at the scene at 4.24am, bringing the blaze under control by 7.15am.

"Through coordination between the Civil Defence Department and the Jebel Ali fire brigade, we managed to curb and control the incident despite the fact that the fire started in the middle of an 8,000 square metre warehouse," said Brigadier Rashid Thani Al-Matrooshi, general manager of Dubai Civil Defence.

The depot stored about 25,000 barrels of combustible material and bags of chemical powder.

The fire did not disrupt shipping because it broke out near the entrance to Jebel Ali, the busiest container port in the Middle East, Matrooshi added.

The port also has the UAE's second biggest oil refinery. "There has been no effect on the refinery operations," said a spokesman for Emirates National Oil Company, which runs the 120,000 barrels-per-day facility.

Sharjah, another UAE emirate, closed its main cargo port for seven hours last week after a fire at a lubricants warehouse.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Fires Breaks in Dubai & Sharjah! Safety Should be First!
Posted by Ubaidallah S. ALGHAMDI, Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday 28 August 2007 at 21:00 UAE time

With the second fire break in Dubai after the Sharjah one, the Management should take a look into safety procedures and establish a proactive safety system in order to prevent such disasters from happening again.

It seems that they are working with washy-washy policies, which will in the long-term prove very expensive.

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