at the same time, cultures mixing together, you re going to end up having, you know, you know, obviously a disaster here and there. and in terms of fire? i m not a hundred percent sure that the fire departments are ready, are even equipped enough to handle such fires. i mean, i was a witness and i was a resident of the torch tower at the time in the dubai marina. and unfortunately, you would see the fire men on their phones taking videos. i mean, i just you know, maybe it s just a one off. you can t blame the entire squad on the action of a guy. but personally in terms of fire safety, i just think that they could have used helicopters at least. you ve got did dubai fountain here which is right in front of the tower, the address marina. you can just fill it up and throw it. i understand maybe the winds are
welcome back, everyone. if you ve been tuning in and watching our coverage, we ve been reporting on breaking news out of dubai, the united arab emirates. a short while ago, 3 1/2, 4 hours ago we got word of a five-star luxury hotel that caught on fire in the downtown area of dubai of ever since, we ve been reporting on it. a short while ago, 1 a 20, officials in the united arab emirates went ahead with their fireworks spectacular as scheduled. certainly a lot of questions arising as to whether or not that was a smart decision, but one that the united arab emirates government took with a certain degree of confidence the fire had been contained. they are reporting, at least the government office, is reporting that 90% of the fire has been contained. reporting only 14 people suffered minor injuries.
the whole day. they were starting street closures at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. local time. they were locking down the area. i ve been here a few days. gates have been up they haven t had the crosswalks closed off until today. they have let people know there will be street closures and things. it was very much, i wouldn t say lockdown situation but very tight security. you felt a security presence everywhere. give us a sense, if you will, now in terms of the fire from where you re seeing, you said the fire where you re standing reporter: i m looking aat build, it s the north side on fire. there s still fires on every floor that i can see. heavy, black smoke and blowing towards talking about burj khalifa. reporter: yeah. too many burjes here. burj khalifa, sorry. have you been able to get
group of firefighters on twitter. so i ve been sharing photos of the area and some of their fire protection systems. we this have cabinet systems just like here in the united states. they have standpipe just like here in the states. but the ability to move a handline and fight a fire in these buildings is something that needs to be trained on and drilled on intensely. and the amount of training and experience that we have in places like boston, new york, miami, indianapolis and cities like that where they have an understanding of how fast and how catastrophic these fires can be, those drills happen continuously. and that is not the case in the uae. bobby halton, stay with us. in terms of online reaction, social media pictures being shared. dubai is trending now on twitter. for more on all of this, let s cross over to msnbc discovery desk editor cal perry who has
went forward with them. all right. we ll ask you to stay on with us, if you will, margaret, if you can stay as we continue coverage. let s bring back in chief vincent dunn, are you with us, still? yes, i am. you are harding there, again, some very contrasting eyewitness accounts with the official government line that the fire has been 90% contained. they haven t said 100%. it s a question i posed to bobby halten, can those two statements be true, that from a average eyewitness account you could see the building, you can say wow it looks very much on fire. but from a firefighter s perspective, from a professional firefighter s perspective, that fire has been 90% contained? are those two statements congruent? it s not under control. when it s under control, it s fully extinguished. when they get you cannot put