Having now moved into a tower of about 20 floors … this story has a bit more resonance with me on a personal level.

A tower in one of the finest neighborhoods of the Dubai went up in flames, and it appears to be because of shoddy construction.

Here is video of the 34-story building on fire, video given to The National by a resident watching nearby. And here is a slide show of the during and after.

Some observations:

Nearly everyone in Dubai lives in a tower, and some of those towers have been built in what are known as “free zones” — where rules and regulations pertaining to building may not be as closely enforced as they are in regular parts of the city.

This particular fire apparently is about the cladding of the building catching fire. In this case, an inferior form of cladding apparently was used, one with a quite flammable, petroleum-based substance — between the aluminum sidings and the building itself.

As the cladding burned, the fire spilled onto some balconies, and entered apartments in that way. Some of the photos on The National’s website show the damage.

Basically, then, the fire did harm to Dubai’s image because it suggests that several of ithe city’s hundreds of towers may be prone to fires of this sort.

Most of the fires in the UAE are about old, run-down buildings in poor areas. This was in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, one of the more posh neighborhoods in the city.

Anyway, something to think about, from here on the eighth floor (which is really more like the 10th, given that the first couple floors of commercial buildings are not counted) here in Abu Dhabi.

Cladding. I may want to check into it.