HANOI (Reuters) - A meal in a remote Vietnam mountain village got out of control when a four-year-old's fight over a barbecued locust ended with 19 houses being burnt to the ground, local officials said on Friday. Some 18 tonnes of rice paddy was ruined and two school classrooms razed in the incident, details of which took a month to reach Hanoi, officials in northern Lao Cai province told Reuters. "The boy wanted to eat the locust, but so did his elder brother," said the official. "They started fighting as the fire flared up. It was during the dry season." The fire took place in a hamlet populated by members of the Thai ethnic minority. Total damage was put at 300 million dong ($24,500). Word on the boy's fate was not known, but he was not hurt in the blaze, the official said.