Deadly fire at Erbil tower highlights shocking safety flaws

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Flames tore through a 17th floor apartment in Erbil’s MRF 5 complex in December, killing one man. MRF residents say they are outraged by the building ownership’s failure to install a fire alarm system and the apparent lack of any emergency response protocol.

Between 1:30 and 2:00 AM on December 7, 2019, residents of MRF 5 building B5 awoke to shouting and strange noises coming from the 17th floor. When word spread that there was a fire, neighbors knocked on each other’s doors in a panicked, disorganized, and incomplete evacuation.

Neither the building’s security personnel nor Erbil’s firefighters went door to door to comprehensively evacuate the building, and there were no fire extinguishers available in the corridors for residents or personnel to quickly extinguish a fire. Building management has since placed ABC fire extinguishers on each floor of the building.

Many of the residents living in the building’s 84 apartments were not notified of the fire as it happened. Some people on the floor above the blaze awoke to smoke-filled apartments only after the fire was extinguished, completely unaware of the danger because no alarm was sounded and no evacuation protocol kicked into action.

MRF building administrator Qaraman Mahdi claimed that there was no need to notify every building resident of a fire that affected only one unit of the building, and that they didn’t want to scare people by notifying them of an incident that wouldn’t directly affect them. People instead woke up to a man screaming for help, trapped on his 17th floor balcony as his flat mate died inside their burning apartment.

Residents demand action

Approximately 40 residents, many of them with infants and small children, have signed a petition demanding a host of safety measures. Fed up with the MRF ownership’s disregard for their safety despite the building’s high rent and expensive service charges, they presented the petition to MRF’s administrators at a meeting on December 14, giving management two weeks to take action. 

The residents’ petition, obtained by Rudaw English, reveals the full extent of the owner’s alleged negligence. The buildings appeared to lack even the bare minimum of modern fire safety equipment and trained staff.

Residents demanded fire alarms, fire extinguishers, and visibly listed emergency contact information on each floor, as well as smoke detectors in the apartments and outage-proof lighting for emergency exits, where fully enclosed steel staircases are often dark and blocked with debris. Additionally, they demanded regular safety and emergency response training for building staff.

One woman, who carried her five-year-old nephew down ten flights of unlit emergency stairs to evacuate, said: “The major thing we are actually asking for is the training of the security guards here. They need to assist residents in any emergency situation.”

Mahdi insisted that the fire hoses on each floor were adequate to address emergency situations and self-explanatory to operate, despite the fact that there are no written or pictured instructions on how to use them. He claimed that the hoses were “very easy” to use, and that it was the responsibility of individual residents, including children, to request a lesson from building management if they were unsure how to operate them.

Inefficient emergency response

Residents who evacuated the building observed an inefficient response by Erbil’s firefighters. In addition to a slow response time, witnesses alleged that the firefighters did not initially realize that in order to use the emergency hose on the 17th floor, they first had to go down to the basement to turn on the water.

One man who lives on the 16th floor said: “When I realized there was a fire at 2:06 AM, it was already very big. At maybe 2:15, there was one fire truck outside, and two security cars. It took an additional 15 minutes until a second truck arrived. Then the [firefighters] put on their protective clothes and went up.”

Footage captured by a resident of an adjacent MRF building shows an apartment engulfed in flames and billowing black smoke, while a man off-camera screams for help. A later video shows a figure in a black body bag being wheeled into an ambulance by emergency responders.

The video evidence shows the fire was extinguished by around 2:50 AM, meaning the man trapped on the balcony was there for almost an hour. In that time, the apartment’s other occupant died. 

The MRF administration contested this timeline, insisting that the fire was put out in 20 minutes despite eyewitness testimony and video evidence to the contrary, but did confirm to tenants and to Rudaw English that one man was killed in the blaze.

No regard for resident safety

One week after the fire, several women in building B5 again smelled smoke. Panicked that another fire had started and unsure whether it was above or below them, they picked up their young children, ran down 16 flights of emergency stairs in the dark, and notified the security guard on duty.

The guard claimed without leaving the lobby that there was no fire, and said he didn’t know the number for the fire department. The women used Google to find a number for the police, who then gave them the number for the fire department.

One of the women dialed the fire department, requesting that they send a truck immediately. She said there was no response on the other end of the line, then she heard it disconnect.

Fearing for the safety of others in the building, she called the police again and explained that the fire department was not answering. The police official responded: “Why are you shouting at me?” and hung up. Neither the police nor the fire department picked up the phone when she called back and no emergency responders came to check the building.

Fortunately on this occasion there was no fire, and the smell of smoke was from the apartment destroyed in the previous week’s blaze. But residents already on edge after the recent deadly incident were infuriated by what they saw as the blatant disregard for their safety by both building security and government emergency service providers.

Legal liability

Attorney Mustafa H.R. al Baqqal explained that Iraq’s Civil Defense Code clearly states that buildings must be equipped with fire alarm systems, and that building management must provide for “securing and organizing means of early alarm and notifying citizens of the possible dangers that could take place”.

Baqqal said that when developers build a new property in Erbil, the building is always constructed in stages, and must pass inspection at various points in order to receive the next round of permits and continue construction.

The Civil Defense Code states developers have the responsibility of “referring infrastructure design and blueprints of all sectors... composed of multiple floors to the civil defense directorate to study them, select necessary precautions, fire alarm, and means of fire extinguishing based on standard instructions and specifications”.

Given this straightforward language, it appears the government nevertheless granted the developers all the licensing and permits necessary to complete their high rise complex. 

Baqqal indicated that the current owners would be liable if residents brought a civil suit. The current ownership would then have to pursue a separate civil case against the original developers if they felt the liability for unsafe building conditions was not their responsibility.

Mahdi, the MRF building administrator, refused to state who the original and current owners of MRF were, claiming that the question was not relevant to the fire incident. He also claimed that MRF intended to install a fire alarm system in February 2020, but offered no specific timeline for completion. 

The MRF administration never followed up with residents after the agreed upon two week period and did not conduct a safety review of the complex.