Why? Because I had been assured the process would literally burn centimetres of unwanted fat from my body.
But was it safe, I asked the masked therapist as she sprinkled me with alcohol. 'Oh yes,' she replied. 'We have no accidents, no burns.' Then there was the click of a lighter and 'poof', I was on fire.
This is the latest way to burn fat being offered to slimmers in Hong Kong. The Life of Life Healing Spa in the busy Causeway Bay district says customers are flocking to try it and results are immediate with losses of up to 15 centimetres of fat experienced after the first session.
Owner Karen Chu claims around 100 customers have undergone the treatment with a good degree of success - and no casualties - since the spa first began offering the 'Aqua-Fire' treatment when they opened in August.'
'You are protected from the flame by wet towels. We have never had any complaints and no-one has every contacted us to say they had a problem.'
'In Asia, people are more open to the idea of fire being a healing treatment. In my experience it is only the Westerners who come here who are afraid of the fire. When I explain what will happen they say: 'Whoa, you are going to barbecue me''.
The fire treatment also boosts the immune system, relieves stress, deep cleanses the skin and eases muscular aches and pains and stomach problems, she said.
Chu claims it is usual to see results after just one initial treatment at a cost of 135 dollars, although a series of five or 20 treatments at a cost of up to 2,500 dollars a package produces better results.
The idea of heat has a healing treatment is not new to either Chinese or Western medicine. In the slimming industry it is used as body wraps or applied in the form of hot mud and even chocolate.
But never before has the source of the heat actually been fire - one of the five elements of nature on which traditional Chinese medicine is based.
'The principal of heat as healing has been around for about 2,000 to 3,000 years in Chinese medicine,' said Chu. 'But in this form it is quite new.'
'We brought the treatment to Hong Kong from Beijing where I believe it was originally used in military hospitals to treat soldiers with muscle pain and strains.'
The treatment, which lasts about 90 minutes, begins with a body scrub and a spa bath, followed by a painful massage in which the fatty area - the buttocks or stomach - is pummelled and kneaded like bread dough.
Next the skin is basted with a thin mud-like solution - a concoction of Chinese medicinal herbs which includes powdered buffalo horn, Chinese angelica, ginseng and caterpillar fungus.
The area is then wrapped in cellophane wrap, covered with two wet towels and doused with alcohol and set alight.
I had been told to let the fire burn for about a minute and half or until the heat became unbearable. The longer and hotter, the better the results, Annie the therapist had told me.
There is something surreal about watching flames dance on your stomach. Surprisingly, initially there was no sensation of heat at all, but then slowly the wet towels that protect your skin from the fire became warmer until they seemed to burn red hot on my skin.
I bit my lip and tried to endure the burning as long as I could. After one minute I could take no more and signalled surrender. My flames were smothered with a wet towel and fizzed out. But that was not the end. This process was repeated two more times, and each time the heat became more intense.
It was a relief when the third and last fire was extinguished. I took a peek. My stomach was red but there was no sign of scalding, no blisters, no burns. I had survived. There had been some pain, but what about the gain?
'Wow,' Annie exclaimed as she took my 'after' measurements in three places. 'You have lost 11 cms of fat.' I asked what had happened to it. 'It melts,' came the reply. 'But where does it go?' I persisted. Annie told me it had drained out via the lymphatic system.
In another treatment room, Sandy Wong, 22, had undergone the treatment for her fifth time. So far on each occasion, she claimed to have lost between 3 and 5 cms from her stomach area. 'The fire doesn't scare me, in fact I find the heat relaxing and comforting,' she said. 'I haven't been too successful in keeping the centimetres off. I like my food too much. But I suffer from constipation and it has certainly helped me with that problem.'
Was I convinced? With Annie out of the room, I took out my own tape measure. From my waist - an area where I had supposedly lost 5.5cms - I appeared to have lost just 1cm, a mere snip which could easily be explained by a slip of the tape measure.
But there was one more test to take before I dismissed the aqua-fire treatment. If I had really lost 11cm, the zip on my trousers would surely glide up with ease.
I tugged. It slid up two thirds of the way and then stuck. I sighed and finished the job as I done several hours before - with a sharp intake of breath and some brute force.
