Fire in Dubai high-rise near world’s tallest building fuelled by cladding

A fire broke out at a 35-storey building near Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, on Monday (Jon Gambrell/AP)

A fire broke out in a 35-storey high-rise in central Dubai near the world’s tallest building early on Monday, racing up the side of the structure in the same way seen in other blazes fuelled by flammable cladding.

A resident at the 8 Boulevard Walk development told the Associated Press that the apartment block has cladding which officials planned to replace after a similar blaze tore through a landmark tower on New Year’s Eve in 2015, but the cladding was not replaced across the entire building.