ALKHOBAR, 3 August — The night sky was lit with streaks of exploding flame as Al Khodari Complex burned out of control until 9 p.m. Even then small pockets of fire were visible on the tenth floor of the building and huge clouds of smoke billowed into the air. Police had dispersed the enormous crowd that had formed earlier in the day on King Abdul Aziz Street to watch the blaze, but there were still a few hundred onlookers in the surrounding area. Twenty-three people had been treated at the scene of the fire. Most of the injured were firefighters suffering from smoke inhalation. Eleven of the injured were taken to area hospitals. Casualties will not be ruled out until the building is searched sometime today.
According to Javed Akhtar, maintenance foreman at the ten-story office complex, the fire started in a kitchenette on the 7th floor at approximately 10:45 a.m. There was no immediate panic as the fire alarm went off on the lower floors and office workers evacuated the structure. The foreman stated that the main breaker switch in the building did not trip but that when the fire alarm sounded the maintenance staff shut the electricity off. It was then that the first crisis of the day began when the maintenance staff were informed that people were trapped in an elevator near the sixth floor.
“Civil Defense had not arrived on the scene,” said Akhtar. “So we
had to run upstairs and pry open the elevator doors and we found one Pakistani and one Indian inside. They were not injured, just frightened, and we all rushed down the stairs and out of the building.”
The fire alarm did not sound on the upper floors of Al Khodari Complex and the first inkling of trouble those workers had was when the electricity went off. Looking out from the windows they saw the crowds below and the smoke. Many had the presence of mind to grab computers and important documents and take them along as they ran down the fire escape on the side of the building. Soon another crisis ensued when one Saudi from Civil Defense was trapped on the eighth floor and two Egyptians were trapped on the ninth floor. In a hair-raising rescue they were picked off the building by firefighters using an extension ladder and aerial basket.
Office workers from the 7th floor said that the fire was very small for the first fifteen minutes but the flames spread quickly across the ceiling tiles and through the insulation of the air conditioning ducts. Firefighters who went inside the building in the evening stated that there was a large pile of spent fire extinguishers on the 7th floor.
Arab News was on the scene in the first hour after the fire began and saw only one unit of firefighters pouring water on the blaze from a high-ladder rig. The effort was ineffective as not only was the ladder too short but due to the wind, much of the time the water was blown away from the building and drenched the watching crowd instead. Reinforcements from Civil Defense did not arrive on the scene for hours and there were not enough water trucks as well. Saudi Aramco was not called in to assist with their heavy-duty equipment until late afternoon.
When the blaze began, a clock tower a few blocks from the scene gave the temperature as 44 degrees C but it was certainly closer to 50 degrees on the ground near the building. The high temperatures quickly exhausted firefighters encased in protective gear. By evening it was clear that the situation was hopeless and firefighters informed companies on the upper floors of the complex that all was lost and the focus would be on keeping the fire from spreading. Standing with the staff of one of those companies it was horrifying to watch as the fire spread to their establishment located on the tenth floor.
They stood in silence as it ate through their offices one by one with the windows exploding outward as confirmation of the total destruction.
The fire scene was very dangerous because as the temperature of the building’s inner core rose, metal and glass from its façade started raining down in chunks. Dozens of cars parked below were destroyed. Orders have been issued for no one to enter the building until the floors have cooled due to the danger of structural collapse. Company owners and insurance agencies have been told that they will not be allowed access to the office complex to assess damage until tomorrow at the earliest.
(With additional reports from Nada Sayed and Sufian Mahmood, special to Arab News)
