‘A recurring nightmare’: After another deadly bar fire, Thailand confronts familiar safety questions
Thailand has promised tougher nightspot safety measures after major fires in the past. Yet following the deadly bar fire in Bangkok on Sunday, bar owners, patrons and experts tell CNA many of the same problems persist.
Rescuers stand near the site of a fire in Bangkok, Thailand on Jul 13, 2026. (Photo: AP/Sakchai Lalit)
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BANGKOK: When Bangkok was waking to news of a devastating bar blaze on Monday (Jul 13) morning, Vorada Hankijjakul was starting to receive messages on her phone to check if she was okay.
A regular partygoer, she had not been out on Sunday, when, just before midnight, witnesses watched smoke rise near the music stage at entertainment outlet Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao. Within moments, an explosion was heard and the venue was engulfed by flames and thick toxic smoke.
The death toll stands at 32, with 30 people still being treated in hospitals in the city. Among those, 15 are in intensive care units.
For the 26-year-old analyst, the incident reinforced a feeling shared by many in Bangkok’s nightlife scene; that this type of tragedy could happen to anyone, anywhere, a reflection of the inherent risks that many Thais feel, but largely ignore, when they go out in the city.
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To Vorada, other patrons and bar owners in the capital who spoke to CNA in the aftermath of the fire, this type of incident was not new or surprising.
“My first reaction was, ‘damn, that’s tragic’. Thank God it did not happen at the club I went to the night before; it would have been much worse, especially with the amount of people they tried to pack in,” she said.
“Part of me felt like something like this was bound to happen eventually.”
Following Sunday’s tragedy, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said that safety standards should be elevated to a “national agenda”, ordering agencies to complete inspections of buildings and entertainment venues nationwide within 30 days.
The focus of such checks should be fire protection systems, emergency exits, occupancy limits and strict compliance with laws and safety standards, he said.
Bangkok’s governor Chadchart Sittipunt also ordered city officials to carry out comprehensive checks to identify fire safety risks and ensure compliance with existing regulations.
Current investigations into the fire are focusing on whether emergency exits were blocked, if improper renovations had been done to the property and around the use of flammable materials for stage decorations and soundproofing.
“Of course the first reaction was shock and upset for those who are victims and families and friends of victims,” said Fah, a bar operator in Bangkok who wanted to be known only by her nickname.
“But then the second reaction would be ‘again?’ Unfortunately it isn’t something that’s surprising in Thailand.”
Thailand has repeatedly promised to make nightlife safer after devastating fires. This latest incident – which occurred less than 3km from the popular Chatuchak Weekend Market – has the country reassessing the very same questions it has been asking for nearly two decades.
On New Year’s Eve in 2009, fire broke out at the Santika Club in Bangkok’s Ekkamai district. Sixty-seven people were killed and more than 220 were injured, making it Thailand’s deadliest nightclub fire.
Investigators concluded that the blaze was likely triggered by indoor pyrotechnics or fireworks, which ignited highly flammable acoustic foam lining the ceiling and walls.
A similar situation played out at the Mountain B club in Sattahip in Chonburi province in 2022, when fire engulfed flammable acoustic foam installed throughout the venue, killing 26 people.
Investigators found serious safety failures, including a locked rear exit, effectively leaving patrons with only one usable escape route.
Following both of these fires, authorities promised tougher enforcement. Yet many of the same concerns are now central to this latest investigation, said observers.
“This is a recurring nightmare that nobody wants to see happen again,” said Sanga Ruangwattanakul, president of the Khaosan Road Business Association, which covers an area in Bangkok highly popular for nighttime entertainment.
“And this time, it has severely shaken public confidence.”
SCARS FROM THE PAST
The Santika fire especially had a scarring impact on many young partygoers in Bangkok that still lingers today, and resonates strongly when similar tragedies occur.
“I still remember Santika like it was yesterday. I was already frequenting these places, and I remember it was New Year’s, and it was that feeling that it could have been any club,” said Cha, who wanted to be known only by her nickname and is now a bar operator in Bangkok.
She said she was shocked by the Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao incident, but “not surprised”, given her insights into how the industry works and a lack of enforcement of safety regulations.
At her venue, which has been open for about one year, she said not a single safety inspection has ever been carried out.
“Zero. At no point was it officially ticked off. Either not from our landlord, not from the previous bar owner and never from the cops, ever,” she said.
It has been left to her and her business partners to take individual responsibility, install smoke alarms and fire extinguishers to protect their patrons.
They have even installed a rope ladder on their bar’s balcony, so people could climb downwards from the third floor if a fire were to break out in the old converted shophouse in the Bangrak area of the capital.
After attending a mandatory emergency fire safety session with local authorities on Tuesday that was called after the Lat Phrao fire, she felt the burden of responsibility was still being skewed towards bar operators.
“The energy that I felt was ‘it’s your responsibility’. It is, but at the same time, they also have a role in this. They’ve told us that the inspections are coming, so let’s see if it actually happens,” she said, referring to the authorities.
For “P”, another bar owner in Bangkok who declined to give his full name, disasters like Santika have shaped how younger operators have designed their businesses from the beginning, with safety in mind.
For him, these measures must function in practice rather than simply existing on paper. But he said, in his experience, they are rarely enforced or mandated by authorities, making incidents like the one at Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao more likely.
“This is an incident that should never have happened, especially since it’s not the first time. It feels incredibly disheartening,” he said.
“Everyone belongs to a generation that grew up with the news of the Santika Club fire. We were kids back then, and we saw how devastating that tragedy was. It was supposed to be a day of celebration and happiness.
“Seeing that kind of news made us realise that when we want to open our own entertainment venue, restaurant, pub, or bar, we have to try our best to prevent that.”
Patrons like Vorada and others say they still see safety risks repeatedly when they attend bars and clubs in the city.
“A lot (of these establishments) try to fit as many tables and people in as possible to maximise profit. This is not new, and there are times when there’s barely any room to move around,” she said.
“If venues can get away with overcrowding or blocked fire exits, then it really raises the question about how effective inspections are.”
Natthida Duangtamchai – who was out drinking in northern Bangkok on Tuesday evening – said she is regularly in places so packed she can barely walk.
“If something happened, I wouldn’t really know how to get out. At the time, I didn’t think much about it, but after something like this, it makes me realise it can actually be quite dangerous,” the 29-year-old banker said.
“I hope this incident makes both venue owners and people going out take (safety) more seriously.”
SILENT KILLERS AND WORKAROUNDS
After Santika, authorities ordered nationwide inspections of pubs, bars and nightclubs to check fire exits, occupancy, licensing and building safety. Hundreds of venues were inspected, with a number temporarily closed for violations.
Given that Sunday’s fire had repeated the same pattern as many times in the past, at the scene, Amorn Pimanmas, the president of the Thai Structural Engineers Association, called for “some kind of revolution” regarding fire safety procedures.
“It’s not like we don’t have the law. It’s a problem of how the law could be strictly enforced from now on,” he said. “The government should answer this question.”
Investigators probing Sunday’s fire are examining reports that emergency exits were obstructed or locked, after many victims were found in bathrooms at the rear of the venue, suggesting they were unable to escape the thick smoke.
Sanga, the business association president, said these were issues “still lurking in the shadows” in many establishments, especially those converted from shophouses.
Other dangerous practices like padlocking emergency exits to stop people from sneaking in and out still continue, he said.
“This is a silent killer that operators often overlook due to temporary convenience or sheer negligence.”
Zoning and business classification laws should also be reviewed, according to Punchada Sirivunnabood, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Mahidol University.
“Right now, it’s very messy in Thailand. Sometimes a venue is registered as a restaurant but turns into a nightclub. When the law is not up to date, it allows people to find loopholes,” she said.
Officials said the Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao bar was licensed as a restaurant with a live music venue rather than an entertainment venue because it was located outside the designated zoning for such businesses.
That would exclude it from the stricter fire safety requirements for entertainment venues, according to Amorn, who spoke to reporters at the scene of the blaze.
Santika too had been licensed as a restaurant rather than a nightclub and had allegedly been operating illegally for years despite dozens of previous police cases.
In recent years during the COVID-19 pandemic, many nightlife businesses converted to restaurant licences so they could reopen under public health rules.
Critics say some venues later continued operating primarily as bars or clubs while remaining licensed as restaurants, creating grey areas around regulation and safety oversight.
Punchada said prevailing corruption meant that nightclubs could pay to secure operating permits or approvals for internal extensions, “causing officials to sometimes ignore or pay no attention to the issues”.
“No one comes to inspect at night. Consequently, they don’t see what actually happens in reality once the doors are closed,” she said.
“This leads to a lack of serious inspections and a failure to conduct continuous monitoring, which results in these incidents happening repeatedly.”
Sanga said it was clear that these types of “workarounds” with venues operating under the guise of general restaurants to bypass strict nightclub safety audits were commonplace.
Such factors make regular bar patrons feel less safe generally, said Rachaphum Panichsombat, 38, while visiting a bar in Bangkok on Tuesday night.
“It definitely makes me think more. I feel the safety measures and inspections aren’t very strict. Thailand doesn’t have a strong proactive response to these things,” he said.
“However, it might not completely stop me from going out, but it’s more about being selective with the venues.
In the short-term, Sanga said he expected compliant businesses to suffer from time-consuming or expensive bureaucracy, while others may see their doors shut if they do not meet the right standards.
But the real test would come later, he said, once time has passed and attention has shifted – when “everything slowly fades into silence”.
“This is our chronic weakness,” he said, also arguing that laws do not need to be necessarily strengthened or re-written, given that they are already “highly comprehensive”.
“What we must do is make the law actually mean something: enforce it consistently, equally, and year-round, not just in the immediate aftermath of a disaster,” he said.
It is a sentiment that bar owner Fah agreed with.
“Every time something like this happens, you become more vigilant, but after a couple of months unfortunately you become less careful or concerned,” she said.
“I think the venues should find a way to also make patrons remain vigilant – it needs behavioural change.”
That may be at the heart of Thailand’s issue, according to Cha. She referred to the Thai word “pramath” which means to be passively risky, or careless in a casual way.
She said it reflects a broader culture of complacency, where safety precautions are often seen as optional rather than essential.
That mentality may explain why, she said, despite repeated disasters and repeated promises of reform, the same conversations continue to resurface.
“It’s a very Thai thing. It’s the same reason Thai people don’t wear helmets on motorbikes,” she said.
“It’s very cultural and it has a lot to do with the law being so flexible here. Like nothing is that enforced, and there’s just this assumption that it’s not going to happen to you.”
Additional reporting by Jarupat Karunyaprasit
Source: CNA/jb(as)
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