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Fire Engulfs Luxury Address Hotel in Dubai. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 31, 2015 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[13:30:00] JONATHAN GILLIAM, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (voice- over): I was reading a report just a moment ago, said it started from the outside of the hotel. That is interesting to me. I'm not exactly sure what they meant by that when they reported it. But, you know, it's hard to tell because I don't know the structure of this building. The 20th floor or where it started, is that a lobby area? There's certain hotels and residents where you actually get into the elevator at the bottom and you go up to a certain floor to actually go into the lobby. So I'm not sure how the layout is in this particular building. But that could be saying a lot about where the fire started and if it was something that was nefarious how people had access into that area. This is, you know -- look, one of the things about the United States is we have codes, fire codes, the way things are built. What I'm seeing in this particular picture that we're looking at is that a couple of things may have happened. Either this building is built out of stuff that is just very flammable or something has caused this big of a fire to spread very rapidly because I'm not seeing regular types of things that would calm this fire down working whatsoever. This is spreading very rapidly.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: So when you raise the question of -- I just need to be very clear here. We have no reason at this point to believe that this is terror related. But this is also something that just happened not too long ago. My understanding, Jonathan, what we're piecing together from one of the witnesses who is in the hotel when this happened, she said she first saw flames and smoke at about 9:35. So now it's an hour later there in Dubai and just in the course of an hour you can see just how much this has grown up. What she says now is the entire side of this 63-story building. So, again, just to be clear, talking about the issue of whether this could be terrorism related. That is nothing confirmed. We don't know at this point. But why is that something you would raise, Jonathan, as a concern? Simply because of how quickly this has accelerated?

GILLIAM: You know, part of it has to do with the fact that I live in New York City and the fire department here is the greatest in the world and they respond and handle these fires in a very aggressive manner. So this has been an hour. It looks as though the fire was absolutely not contained and it's grown, you know, exponentially worse --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Jonathan, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Stay with us.

Because, actually, I need to bring in another guest, Josh Gatlin. He is an American there in Dubai just visiting. He was 200 feet away from the Address Hotel when the fire broke out.

Josh, tell us what you saw. Just explain to us the scene from the beginning of when you realized there was something wrong.

JOSH GATLIN, AMERICAN WITNESS IN DUBAI (voice-over): Well, apparently, what we heard a million other people are doing, that's waiting for the fireworks. And actually the only reason why I turned around is I felt the heat on my back, and about that time noticed everybody running to the railing. And turned around and saw, you know, what ya'll are seeing pictures of. And my -- within 10 seconds, it went from, wow, that's a fire, to we need to not be where we are and we need to be moving away from that. Because it went from, hey, there's a fire, to, yeah, that's significant, in a matter of seconds.

KEILAR: In a matter of seconds. So you didn't hear anything, you just felt the heat from the fire. You didn't hear any sort of exPLOsion or anything audible --

(CROSSTALK)

GATLIN: No, ma'am. No, ma'am.

KEILAR: I just want to -- I know you obviously are familiar with the Burj Khalifa. That is a nearby skyscraper. It's actually the tallest skyscraper in the world there in Dubai, you've probably seen it.

OK, so how long ago, Josh, did this happen?

GATLIN: Golly, it's been a little hectic here for the last, let's say, hour. It could have been, you know, 50 minutes ago or an hour and 10 minutes ago. It's hard to know time. I can tell you I heard your previous guest talking about containment. I certainly wouldn't want to speculate on how the authorities are moving in or not moving in. I can tell you, though, with a reported 1 million, you know, extra people in town, it's not like it just happened on a lazy, you know, Thursday afternoon. This is would be of the biggest events in the world for a new yea year's eve event. I cannot imagine the amount of effort it took just to get people out of the way in order to get authorities in. So, again, I'm not going to speculate on the logistics of that. Just from what I saw, it was an enormous task just to get to the scene.

[13:35:00] KEILAR: So, are you -- where are you now? Are you in a place where you can see this?

GATLIN: I'm about a block away, and, yes, I'm in a place where I can see it. It's a little -- it looked like to me the fire went up in the middle of the building, the side from the outside of the building. It's -- looked like it dissipated a little bit. Only at least open the outside. Only because it looked like it had burned everything it could burn. It looked like it was maybe settling down a little bit. And then all of a sudden, it kind of -- it kind of started spreading a little bit to the left. Like I said, I thought, hey, this is contained. All of a sudden, it just started moving around the building. I looked at my wife and said, it's not going to stop until it goes all the way around the building. It's going to keep burning until it has nothing left to burn. That's what it looked to me. Not to be overdramatic. That's what it looked like to one casual observer.

KEILAR: No, certainly, we're looking at the pictures and they are dramatic. There's no other way to put it. Especially with so many other people you know were inside. Our hope is they've been evacuated. We just don't know at this point in time as authorities respond. Josh, tell me about the scene sort of underneath the building. You're one block away. This is the area where people are gathering to look at fireworks, right? When this broke out, our understanding is they were just about two and a half hours from midnight and people were already there, staking out there positions to watch the show.

GATLIN: People have been staking out there positions since 7:00, because I was one of them. But so yes, there were people all around this place since 7:00 a.m. this morning. And so, yes, it's been -- it's been orderly on the way in. And it was -- it was oddly orderly on the way out. There was a little bit confusion, kind of stay or go at first. But that became pretty clear. I believe -- again, I was -- by the time everyone really started evacuating, my wife and I and one other friend, we had already started making our way towards the exit. We exited towards a parking garage with debris, ash, coming down. Security guards actually wanted us to stay in the garage at first for fear we would be hit by debris. Sometimes instinct takes over and I said, you're crazy if you think you're keeping me in this garage, we're out of here. We left and we got away from harm's way. It was not a mad dash. It was not a sprint. People were pretty orderly, helping one another, helping kids with strollers. Obviously, the scene you would imagine, people crying and people praying. You have so many cultures. Really just this collection of culture and religion. And people praying. People putting hands on one another's shoulders saying, it's going to be OK. And that's what we saw. That's what we see.

KEILAR: You talked about the debris, the ash, the siding that was coming down. Tell us more about that. I mean, what did the debris look like? Was it completely charred? Could you make out what it was?

GATLIN: I don't know. It looked like any kind of -- just building material. Not heavy material --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Josh, I'm really sorry to interrupt you. Can you stay with us? I need to -- I'm going to switch over real quick to talk to -- we want to come back to you. Definitely stay with us.

I want to talk to Jacqueline Hurtado. She's a CNN Espanol correspondent. She was on the terrace when she was evacuated. She is on the phone now from Dubai.

Set the scene for us. Tell us as we're looking now at these pictures of the flames now going -- it looks now it's almost starting to go around the entire hotel. JACQUELINE HURTADO, CNN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hi,

Brianna. Can you hear me?

KEILAR: Yes, Jacqueline, I can. Can you tell us what you've seen?

[13:39:27] HURTADO: Yes, we were there, waiting for the fireworks spectacular that was going to take place at Burj Khalifa. We had heard an exPLOsion. People around us didn't really quite know what was going on. We thought maybe people were already preparing for the firework spectacular it suddenly you saw people screaming and running. And some people in the terrace, in the area where we had made reservations were kind of looking around. Because we weren't thinking the hotel address, you know, that -- a lot of us had to turn our backs. They started evacuating people who were around the terrace because they started seeing some of the debris beginning to fall. The authorities got there in a matter of minutes. They started letting a lot of the people who were out on the terrace, asking them to please evacuate. I know that there was a language barrier because there were a lot of tourists and they were speaking in a language that a lot people didn't know, Arab, so a lot of people were just kind of wondering, confused, because they really didn't know what was going on, except about a couple minutes, maybe about 15 to 20 minutes, to actually get everybody to start listening, you know, evacuating from the terrace. Everybody was cooperating. But a lot of people were confused because, you know, it was just two hours before the New Year's fireworks that everybody was waiting for. So right now, authorities have evacuated everybody that was in that area. They've also evacuated most of the Dubai Mall, the biggest mall in the world. They're making us walk right now through the parking structure, out to the street, and they're asking everybody to evacuate.

I had a chance to ask one of the officials here -- he's with Dubai police -- to see if there was still going to be any fireworks shows. He says right now they haven't said anything. People are just waiting. There's a lot of tourists here, a lot of residents, a lot of families. A lot of these families were scared. Many of the children were crying. Just because they started seeing a lot of people run inside the Dubai Mall because we really didn't know what was going on. The building had caught on fire but we didn't know much of what was going on. So now we're being evacuated from the Dubai Mall, heading out to the street, and that's all we really know at this time.

KEILAR: Just set the scene for people who are not familiar with this hotel. Is the Dubai Mall attached to the hotel? Is this part of the hotel?

HURTADO: No, it's like a promenade area. So the Dubai Mall is separate. But by the Dubai Mall, there's a lot of restaurants attached outside the patio. So the building that caught on fire is just one of many buildings. So this building I would say is directly across from the Burj Khalifa, right across from the water fountain where they have a big water fountain spectacular, and many of the restaurants and other buildings are surrounded it. The Dubai Mall is not connected to the Address Hotel. It's separate.

KEILAR: Jacqueline, you talked about hearing an exPLOsion? Can you tell us more about that?

HURTADO: Yes, you heard like a loud pop. But people really didn't know what was going on. Because where I was sitting, you couldn't really see the building. You kind of had to step out a little and then turn back to see. And then you were seeing the whole building on fire. So you heard something but a lot of people didn't know. I personally thought maybe they started the fireworks show or, you know, to test it or something. We really didn't know until somebody started screaming. They didn't scream fire because -- they screamed something else. So everybody there kind of turned around. We were a little bit confused. People around us -- we're all American so we were, you know, asking, do you know what they're saying, you know, what's going on, until we actually turned around and saw the building had caught on fire. And then you could see the building was being consumed in a matter of seconds. That fire was big, just going so fast. I think that's why authorities started evacuating people off the terrace, off this area, because people started to fall down, right below the hotel.

KEILAR: So you were on the terrace. What floor is the terrace?

HURTADO: The terrace, I believe it's the ground floor, the last floor of the whole mall, the ground floor and underneath is the garage.

KEILAR: All right, so it's the ground floor. We actually talked to another woman who was also in the terrace area. So when you heard this exPLOsion, this popping sound, was that the first sign that there was anything the matter? Or did that just draw your attention to what was already flames that you were seeing there?

[13:45:02] HURTADO: I think maybe the flames had already started, the fire. It just moved so quick, so quick, in a matter of seconds. It just started burning real quick. You know, when I turned around and saw the fire, it was a big amount, the side of the building of the hotel was on fire. By the time they evacuated everybody, that was like 20, 30 minutes, you saw this building was halfway on fire already. And this building is huge. It's one of -- it's a tall skyscraper here in downtown. It's not as big as the Burj Khalifa because that's the tallest one in the old, but it's pretty tall. So when you look back and you see this fire, you got scared. You didn't know if this building was going to -- there's a lot of people underneath, because we were in the terrace area.

KEILAR: Yeah, I mean, to see these pictures is too stunned. The size of this hotel, hundreds and hundreds of motel rooms. There's residents. There's a mall. There's half a dozen restaurants. This is a giant hotel complex, Jacqueline, that you're talking about. Set the scene for us where you are, what the people around you are doing. Also if you're seeing any debris.

HURTADO: No, we're not seeing any debris here. They took us through a side door, an emergency exit. They started pointing people in different directions. There was an emergency -- two emergency exits in this direction. There was one on the right, one on the left. People started evacuating on both sides. This is a huge mall, Brianna. I've been here for the last couple days, two days, and I haven't had a chance to walk this whole entire mall. So right now just walking to evacuate, it takes time. I would say this hallway, it probably takes about 20, 25 minute walk. It's a pretty long walkway. Where we're walking through is actually the parking garage. You see a lot of people starting to drive away. I had a chance to talk to some tourists here. And they were still going to head on outside around downtown area to see if there was still going to be a fireworks spectacular in about an hour and 15 minutes. Because it's already, what, 10:45 here in Dubai. So right now, people are still evacuating. There was a lot of children. A lot of children were crying. They were scared. There was a lot of confusion. If you weren't outside in the promenade and you just saw authorities rush in from the mall, going outside to the terrace, the people were just scared. And we in an area where you can see in a little bit from inside the mall. So people were just scared. Because they really kind know what was going on. People didn't know there was a building on fire. People outside on the terrace were being evacuated. Were letting the other people inside the mall know there was a structure fire.

KEILAR: I think the concern when we talk about this hotel is that there are a number of guests there. There are residences here. Now we're seeing such a large chunk of this huge hotel engulfed so quickly in flames. The big concern is going to be if they were able to get everybody out in time. Have you been able to bump into anyone who was in an apartment or in a hotel room?

HURTADO: No. I haven't had a chance to talk to anybody. The area where we were was mostly all tourists and also residents. The people who were out on the terrace had made reservations at the restaurant. So you can see the fireworks spectacular show over at Burj Khalifa so most of the people out there had made reservations. So if you didn't make a reservation, you weren't allowed in this area, in this terrace area. I had a chance to talk to the manager from the restaurant where we had made reservations. He said this is the second year where they've actually closed it off. And if you don't make reservations and you didn't have a wrist band, you're not allowed to go to the terrace area because a couple years back, it was just too many people and it was more of a safety precaution. So the way they did it, I would say it was very good, because people started listening. People started evacuating. Whether you knew the language or not, people were cooperating, people were helping each other. You saw some families helping other families with children. Because everything was happening so quick, so these parents were scared for their children. A lot of the children were screaming and crying. You saw that everybody was kind of trying to get everybody away from the fire.

[13:50:26] So if you did not have a ticket for this event to be out in the terrace, you were mainly inside the mall and that's where a lot of people started seeing the pop outside on the terrace, just run inside the mall and everybody was confused. It caused a little bit of commotion because the people didn't know what was going on. They weren't here shopping. Most of the stores were going to be open until midnight.

Walking through this hallway, I'm seeing that some of the stores in the mall are still open. I don't know it if they are going to be open or waiting for authorities to let them know. And like I said, this mall is huge. I have seen not a lot of activity where I'm at. KEILAR: Jacqueline, stay with us.

I want to go back to Josh now. He's an American who is visiting there in Dubai.

Josh, tell us where you are at this point in time and what you can see. Earlier, we spoke and you were a block away and were able to see the flames there at the hotel.

GATLIN: That's right. It's kind of obstructed right now with so much smoke. I can still see the flames a little bit lower.

KEILAR: I think we might have lost Josh.

Josh, can you hear me?

Unfortunately, we have lost Josh.

Jacqueline, are you still with me?

OK, we were just talking to a couple people there. That gives you a sense of how big this hotel is that just in the course of this there have been a number of people, including one of our own CNN reporters who was there for the celebrations there at a restaurant waiting to see the fireworks, which are about to take place here in about an hour and eight minutes they were scheduled. We don't know what the plan is now.

Just to reset this, for our viewers just turning in, this is a huge hotel in downtown Dubai in the Emirates. And this is a very busy city on a very busy night where they are expecting upwards of a million people to be coming in for fireworks that were to take place not far away. The Address Hotel you see on your screen is now engulfed in flames. The fireworks display at the Burj Khalifa, which is the biggest skyscraper, biggest artificial structure in the world -- you probably would recognize it if you see it -- this hotel is really in the shadow of that hotel. So people had gathered down in the streets to watch the fireworks. This hotel with 63 stories has hundreds of hotel rooms. More than half a dozen restaurants a giant mall there. And people had reserved tables at the restaurant so they could then get a view of the fireworks set to take place here in less than an hour in Dubai. So this was a giant sort of gathering of people. You can imagine a huge city on New Year's Eve. And many had come into the area.

We don't know the cause of the fire. We did hear from our reporter on the ground who had been at a restaurant that she heard what sounded like a popping sound and that's what first drew her attention to the fire at the Address Hotel. But what she also said was she thought she heard this explosion but she thought the fire had already begun engulfing the hotel. She described a scene where a lot of people didn't know what was going on. But we've heard from a number of folk who have called in that were there that there was an orderly evacuation, from the ground level certainly. We don't know from higher floors up, and that's what we're trying to get information about. There was some confusion because the language barrier and instructions were being given. This is a huge multi-culture crowd, people coming from all over the world. People in Dubai, who had friends coming in, Americans who we have spoken with.

And I do want to tell you we're just getting word from -- this is coming in from the government there in Dubai. They say the New Year's celebrations are going to continue as scheduled. So they are expecting that to take place in about an hour and five minutes.

[13:55:00] We do want to say the Dubai media office is reporting the fire is not spreading inside the hotel due to the internal fire extinguishers. That's good news. Maybe what we're seeing is the worst of it and this is a fire that is crawling up and has crawled up really the outside of this massive hotel, this skyscraper of a hotel. A lot of the damage is on the outside and not on the inside because they have fire measures, sprinklers that are putting out the fire inside. We're still trying to get more information here.

I do want to bring in a terrorism expert, Ken Robinson.

Ken, certainly, at this point, everyone is on edge going into New Year's Eve. People are worried there could be some sort of attack. I want to caution we know nothing about that being related to what we're seeing now. That's really the concern of officials that either way this is a giant -- this is really a huge thing that officials there in Dubai are undertaking.

KEN ROBINSON, TERRORISM EXPERT (voice-over): Right now, it's a tragedy. And I'm standing at the Saudi hospital in Dubai at the emergency room. There are multiple gurneys and staff standing by to receive. So far no burn victims have come. This is one of the largest hospitals in Dubai. There's been over a million people merge in here over the last 48 hours. The decision that was just made by the government to continue with the fireworks is a wise one because we don't want to crowd the streets with people leaving. They are doing that more to keep people in place than they are because they want to celebrate New Year's Eve. They are making a wise decision of controlling the public.

KEILAR: That's an interesting point. A lot of people would look at that addition and say this is happening in downtown. Why are they going on with that? So you're in Dubai. I know you just had surgery done there at the hospital. So you know that people are on standby and you're driving that scene. Have any victims been brought? You say no burn victims have been brought?

ROBINSON: Not here and not now. We're close. This is a very large hospital and they are on alert. Staff is standing by here in the emergency room. I'm standing out in the parking lot in front where the emergency vehicles would come. I have heard emergency vehicles heading toward the hotel, but I haven't seen anything come yet here.

KEILAR: Ken, standby for me.

I want to bring in Glenn Corbett, a tactical fire expert joining us on the phone.

Glenn, you're seeing these pictures. Tell us what you're looking at.

GLENN CORBETT, TACTICAL FIRE EXPERT & PROFESSOR OF FIRE SCIENCE, JOHN JAY COLLEGE (voice-over): Thanks for having me. This is a fire that obviously is beyond the control of any fire department. It appears to me to be one in which obviously the exterior of the building you see large flames from around the various floors. So the entire height of the building which leads me to believe the exterior surface played a big role. We have had fires like this in recent years. The exterior materials are used for finishing purposes and actually create situations where you can have a massive fire like this.

KEILAR: We heard from authorities they say this is actually an external fire and that some of the -- or all of the sprinklers on the inside are really keeping the flames at bay inside of the building. Is that what you would expect?

CORBETT: I would hope so. The thing is with the sprinkler system, they are usually not designed for such a magnitude of fire we're seeing here. Usually sprinkler systems end up operating maybe 30 heads tops. I'm sure there's probably 40 stories of fire here. There's probably at least a few hundred sprinkler heads trying to do the job. The best thing they can do is apply water to the system because that's the only thing that's going to present it from spreading throughout the rest of the building.

KEILAR: You expect that. Real quick, what material would this building made out of that it would be so flammable and this fire so fast moving?

CORBETT: Basically, the building itself is probably steel and concrete, but the plastic and synthetic materials can cause a situation like this.

KEILAR: Glenn Corbett, tactical fire expert, thank you so much for joining us.

Just to reset for our viewers, you're looking at one of the larger hotels in Dubai. This is a skyscraper, 63 stories tall, over 300 meters tall. A large portion of it engulfed in flames. This is a place with hundreds of residents and hotels. We're going to continue to monitor this breaking news here in the time ahead.

This is it for me. Our live coverage will continue with Fredricka Whitfield.

[14:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks so much, Brianna.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. I want to --