This is the astonishing moment tourists used their water guns to extinguish a burning fried chicken stall.

The revelers were having water splash fights during the Songkran festival when a fire erupted at the street food shop along Pattaya Beach on April 19.

The tourists cheered and applauded as they aimed their water guns at the blaze, helping to control it before firefighters arrived.

A watermelon vendor stationed nearby said: 'I was selling fruit when I saw flames coming out of the oven at the fried chicken shop. I turned off the gas valve and carried the fuel tank away, but the fire had already spread to the tent.'

The stall owner said: 'The fire spread quickly because the heat had accumulated in my frying pans. Luckily, there were many tourists that helped put out the fire with their water guns before it could spread to other shops.'

Authorities said there were no injuries from the fire.

Thailand last week celebrated the Buddhist festival Songkran, which takes place every year from April 13 to April 15. It marks the new calendar year in the ancient religion, and originated in India in the 6th century before being taken up by the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire - the predecessor to modern-day Cambodia.

Followers splash each other with water to wash away the sins and bad luck of the past year. Traditionally, young relatives would pour water over the hands and feet of elders as a mark of respect.

However, the once-sedate festival has been commercialised by the avaricious Thai tourism industry and spawned into depraved alcohol-fuelled near-naked water fights across the country's major cities, with hundreds of thousands of tourists joining in the chaos to cool off as temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius in the hottest month of the year.

Ministers have urged locals not to drink and drive while officials in Bangkok have banned alcohol at its official festival venues due to the rise in road accidents during the period.

There are also criticisms that it wastes water at a time when prolonged droughts are causing peril across the world.