Close to 600 pilgrims escaped a fire that broke out in a 15-storey hotel in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, said a report.

Flames were coming from a "faulty air conditioning unit" on the eighth floor of the hotel, which was inhabited by pilgrims from Yemen and Turkey, said a report in Saudi Press Agency citing Major Nayef Al-Sharif, spokesman for the General Directorate of Civil Defense in Makkah.

No casualties were reported.

"All the hotel guests were evacuated as a precautionary measure by rescue teams while the fire was put out and the situation brought under control without causing any injuries or loss of life,” Arab News reported him as saying.

Al- Sharif said that a team was investigating the cause of the incident.