The Boston Globe has a fantastic photo site called The Big Picture, which highlights some of the day's best photos from around the world. On February 11, they did a spread on China's Lantern Festival, with fantastic photos from all over China, including photos of the burning building in Beijing. 

This fire was the melding of two great Chinese loves:  fireworks and ignoring regulations.  Some reports indicated that the police tried to tell them (officials at CCTV, the government TV network) that they needed a permit for their show.  I'm guessing the response was simply 'WE ARE CCTV!!'  KABOOM!  A building that had some of the latest technologies to protect it in the event of an earthquake was simply no match for a two-bit government official!