Hot Season – And Getting Hotter!
By Garry | April 11th, 2002 | Category: Expat Life, Fire, News Reports | No Comments »Published in Good Morning Chiangmai News, Thailand – May 2002
Hot Season
And Getting Hotter!
CHIANG MAI, Thailand – 11 Apr 2002 - At approximately 7:00pm on Thursday 11th April 2002, as Chiangmai was anticipating the annual Songkran water fights, a solitary spark rose into the air over a poor area of southern Chiangmai city. Within ten minutes, the wooden shanty home was a bed of cinders and the owners homeless.
During the hot season, everything in Thailand is tinder dry, yet still people play with fireworks and carelessly throw cigarette ends away. The spectacle of “flashing the oil” often seen in Thai cooking is a particular hazard in older wooden homes. Who knows why this fire started, but praise must be given to the Royal Thai Fire Brigade who were on the scene within minutes of that first spark being seen. Crowds hindered the progress of other emergency vehicles arriving in the second wave – one youth parking his motorcycle directly in the path of a fire truck.