Nightclubs that cater to the younger, late-night crowd weren't yet open, but shops and restaurants were going strong. Cars cruised the strip in the hours before 8 p.m., when the street is closed to traffic. Music blared from shops and pubs. Restaurants did a brisk business and parking lots began to fill, giving no sign that the district had been the site of a huge, destructive fire earlier in the day.

A few blocks away from party central, the scene was more somber.

A small crowd gathered at Palm Avenue and 18th Street, watching as a bulldozer plowed through the rubble left by the blaze, which destroyed an apartment complex that was under construction and a post office.

Lou and Donna Palmer drove over from their home in Tampa Heights, ``where the other fires are.''

``That was my first thought, `Geez, there's another one,' '' Lou Palmer said. Early fears were that the fire was another in a string of almost 40 arsons that have plagued Tampa Heights and Ybor City for the past year. The fire actually was started when a forklift hit a power line at the apartment complex construction site.

While there was relief that the fire was not arson, Lou Palmer noted that the Ybor blaze will still affect his neighborhood.

``Tampa Heights is so close, it impacts us as well,'' he said. ``We're lucky it was just the construction site.''

The blackened grass and tree trunks around Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a 100-year-old Roman Catholic church, reflected that sentiment.

At 18th Street and 11th Avenue, Horst Struve kept watch as a handful of passers-by observed crews working on power lines near the site of the fire.

``There's not that many, but you always have a few sightseers,'' said Struve, who works weekends as a security guard for Camden Property Trust, the company that owns the destroyed complex.

Stephen Bucholtz gazed at the destruction as he waited to meet his wife, a teacher at Phillip Shore Elementary School, for dinner.

Bucholtz was at work when he saw reports of the fire on television. ``I was a little concerned when I saw Ybor ablaze,'' he said, ``until I figured out it wasn't the school.''

The school was evacuated as a precaution, with teachers and students moved to Hillsborough High School.

A grill outside the Hilton Garden Inn cut the fire's acrid smoke with the smell of barbecue. And strolling just a few blocks south of the site of the fire, it was easy to forget about the destruction as revelers readied themselves for another Ybor City weekend.

The Palmers wouldn't be among them.

``We don't spend a lot of evenings away from home lately with all the weirdness,'' Lou said.