Before dawn on January 1, 2009, a fire broke out and killed 66 people at Club Santika in Bangkok, Thailand. The number of deaths in the fire was much larger than any fire accidents occurred in in recent years. Tokyo University of Science of Japan under the Global COE Program (GCOE) of Center for Education and Research on Advanced Fire Safety Science and Technology in East Asia conducted a collaborative field survey with National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster (NRIFD) of Japan in the light of its objective to promote developments in fire prevention and safety measures in rapidly urbanizing and modernizing East Asia. Focusing on the fire in Club Santika as one of the GCOE fire case studies, this article will sort out fire prevention problems that may cause heavy loss of lives and will examine the possibility of similar disaster in Japan.