The karaoke bar behind my apartment burned down the other night. At around 11:30 I heard singing and laughing from my room, which all of a sudden got louder. I assumed the party was just picking up steam until I heard shouts and screams. I went to the window and saw flames. I didn't know how much trust to put in the Pattaya Fire Department. If the fire got bigger, I thought, it could easily jump from the tree over the bar to the tree behind the Language Corps building. So I filled my backpack with irreplaceables and went up to the roof to watch. Eventually the firemen came and put out the fire. One of the bargirls on my street told me the next morning that the fire had started when a lantern was knocked loose and spilled on a wall. The flames quickly reached a propane tank, which exploded. Amazingly, nobody was hurt.