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28 March 2024

Refinery smoke and fire rumours halt traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road

Picture captured by Emirates24|7 reader shows smoke billowing out from the Jebel Ali industrial area. (Twitter)

Published
By Shuchita Kapur

Rumours of yet another fire in Dubai gripped the city in the early hours of the morning, leading to chock-a-block traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road.

However, there seems to have been no untoward incident as the root of the fire rumours seems to be the smoke billowing out of an oil refinery during the normal process of oil refining.
“This is not a fire,” the security guard at Gate number 2 of Jebel Ali Industrial Zone confirmed to Emirates 24|7.
“It’s coming out of oil refineries. It seems dense as many refineries are functioning right now. It’s the bad residue that goes up in smoke,” the guard told this reporter.
“Many people from far may think its fire but this is not the case,” he added.

Sheikh Zayed traffic jam due to reported accident and fire in Jebel Ali industrial area. (Twitter: Anup Namboodiri)

 

However, the thick visible blanket of smoke slowed down traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road heading towards Abu Dhabi but it eased after exit 22.
Photo by Shuchita Kapur
Traffic along Sheikh Zayed Road close to JLT and Dubai Marina, however, was blocked since early morning, when an accident seemed to have held up things.
“Traffic towards Abu Dhabi has been blocked since about 7am. It has been blocked all the way up to the third Interchange,” tweeted Omar Mistry.
Internet group buying website, Moxdeals, tweeted about delays to work, saying: “Everyone was late in our office today due to jam pack traffic at Sheikh Zayed Road. How many of you reached on time?”
Photo by Shuchita Kapur
A number of people have been tweeting about the 'incident'. Many of the tweets have urged motorists to take a deviation to Al Khail road in order to avoid the SZR block.

Sharjah fire picture posted by Emirates 24|7 reader. Picture on the right shows fire billowing out at night. On left is the smoke coming out after 6 hours. (Twitter: Maha Khan)

 

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a major fire gutted a warehouse in Sharjah early this morning.
The warehouse is located at the Industrial area close to National Paints. Civil Defence teams from Dubai and Ajman too were rushed in to control the fire.