slowly collapse

I'm trying to make flan right now. Actually, since a friend texted me for a drink, I'm practicing to make flan right now, since I won't have time to cook it. I'm currently melting sugar for caramel. It didn't appear to be burning, but there was a very unpleasant burning smell, which I was a bit puzzled by. Turns out I didn't take the pan's label off the bottom, so I had waxed paper over a gas flame for about half an hour. Did I mention that my apartment has no smoke detector?