Excellency Maj. Gen. Expert Rashid Thani Rashid Almatrooshi, director general of Dubai Civil Defense, received at his office a high ranking delegation from London Metropolitan Police, comprises Andrew Chalmers, Deputy Senior Investigating Officer, and Matt Bonner, Detective Chief Inspector, senior investigator of Grenfell Tower fire.
The purpose of the visit is to learn from Dubai Civil Defense vast experiences in the field of incidents and hazards protection, ways of dealing with high-rise fires, particularly Address Downtown Hotel fire incident took place in 2015, which was handled in a very professional and efficient way by Dubai Civil Defense personnel, reflected in fast response, skilled suppression operations and effective management of the incident scene, as fire squads managed to safely evacuate more than 3000 hotel guests and visitors in a record time, and cardoon the vicinity, as compared to Grenfell tower fire incident that led to 72 victims from different nationalities, in the north of Kensington, west capital city London in 2018.
Both parties carried out benchmark study for Dubai Civil Defense procedures adopted in how to handle fire incidents, focusing on Address hotel fire incident comparing to Grenfell tower fire incident in London, evacuations procedures followed in both fire incidents, preventive procedures, awareness campaigns, evacuation drills, buildings installed fire systems, ways of dealing with old buildings, external cladding systems, and implementation of artificial intelligence in predicting potential risks and vulnerable incidents, as well as fire causes.
Almatrooshi illustrated to the visiting delegation major points stood behind Dubai Civil Defense excellence and its vast accumulated experiences that made it outstanding fire and rescue authority across the region, ranging from implementing advanced force entry tactics to identifying intervention speed and complete readiness to respond to different scenarios, through its various sectors of suppression, evacuation, logistic support required to control the situation and firefighters safety, and they were together the main reasons of the success witnessed in controlling 60 story Address hotel fire and ensuring safety in a record time, managing the crowd and post incident period, which has positively reflected UAE reputation in crisis management and achieved customers satisfaction.
He also pointed to the distinguished seven star Civil Defense fire stations, which hosting motivated working environment for firefighters, established according to futuristic vision and analytical studies.
He also demonstrated ways of enhancing lives and properties protection adopted in Dubai through utilizing latest systems and applications, accelerators and artificial intelligence, and through 24x7 monitoring system which helped to achieve sharp reduction in fire incidents.
High ranking delegation reviewed the systems applied in DVD’s central operations room, which considered as the best of its kind in the region in respect of its sophisticated equipment and apparatuses and the role it plays in handling different incidents in record time, also reviewed UAE fire and safety Code of practices, in addition to DCD other innovative projects and its expansion observed in artificial intelligence and implementation of NANO technology in fire suppression operations as part of wise leadership trend for reshaping the future.
Lt. Col. Mattran Khalil Ibrahim, director general of Operations department and I1st. Lt. Eissa Khorsheed deputy director of Monitoring department were among the attendees also.
