Dubai Police revealed cause of fire that broke out at Expo Dubai site in May

As investigation into the fire that broke out at the Expo Dubai site last month has found that it was caused by a technical welding issue, with the “facts concealed by a construction worker and engineer”.

Forensic fire investigation experts and criminologists at Dubai Police’s General Department of Criminal Investigation (CID) conducted 12 scientific experiments and re-enacted the incident of fire to determine the cause of the spark.

They found that the fire was caused by an unexpected technical problem during some welding work – which had previously been denied by the worker and engineer, official news agency WAM reported.

Read: Fire erupts at Dubai Expo 2020 site

Officials concluded that the welding operations led to a rise in the temperature of the tube to more than 350 degrees celsius, which caused the tube to ignite.

According to investigators, the worker stopped what he was doing when he faced a technical fault and re-stored the equipment in the dedicated room “without observing the safety requirements”.

After five minutes, he noticed workers evacuating from the site due to a fire. He immediately left the site and informed the engineer about what had happened during the welding and his negligence of safety measures.

“The engineer told him to keep quiet and to not tell anyone else and as there were no witnesses, there was no need to involve the company,” the report claimed.

Investigators also found messages circulated among workers telling them to deny their presence at the site on the day of the fire.

When confronted with the facts, the worker and engineer “admitted to concealing the truth”, the report added.

Major general Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, commander-in-chief of Dubai Police, said officials used advanced technology and AI during the investigation to establish the cause of the fire.

However, no injuries or casualties were reported according to the official statement.

The Expo 2020 Dubai event has been delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 infection and is now slated to begin on October 1, 2021 and run until March 31, 2022.

Read: Expo 2020 Dubai to be held from October 1, 2021