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Horrible.

NBC News
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At least 40 dead after fire sweeps through Swiss ski reso...

Around 100 people were also injured in the fire that broke out during New Year's celebrations in the municipality of Crans-Montana, authorities said.

At least 40 people are dead and more the 100 others were severely injured after a fire broke out during a New Year’s Eve celebration at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort, authorities said Thursday.

Calling it an “unprecedented tragedy,” Valais canton police commander Frédéric Gisler warned the death toll could rise because many of the injured are in critical condition.

Meanwhile, Gisler said at a news conference, “the priority will be to identify those who lost their lives.”

Swiss President Guy Parmelin said that many of the victims were young people and the victims include Swiss residents as well as tourists from neighboring countries and elsewhere.

“Behind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted,” Parmelin said at the press conference.

1 hour ago, Wally Fairway said:

Was Great White playing at that bar? (too soon?)

This was the first thing that entered my mind as well. Debauched and broken humans ftw!

Worst way to die imo and sometimes surviving is worse than death

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260101-here-what-to-know-about-deadly-nye-fire-in-swiss-resort-town

The blaze broke out around 1:30am Thursday inside the Le Constellation bar amid the holiday celebration.

Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.

People frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, one of the women said.

just going to guess that at 1:30am everybody wasn't exactly sober, which would add to the chaos

50 minutes ago, Bill Brasky said:

just going to guess that at 1:30am everybody wasn't exactly sober, which would add to the chaos

This seems very European. Drunk bartenders, doing stupid shit. Poor fire retardation in the building with 200 year old wood rafters without fire resistant stain or fire resistant insulation. One exit that isn't easily accessible. No ceiling sprinkler system...

Death trap

image.png

Edited by Ted Lange

Somewhere in a city office file is an inspection report with a code violation.

1 hour ago, Ted Lange said:

Death trap

image.png

Looking at that map/picture, my claustrophobia/enochlophobia* probably would have kept me out of that "basement bar area" if it were crowded (which it sounds like it was).

*Really really don't like enclosed+crowded areas. I can handle one or the other, but not both.

Even those who survived saw and likely did some gruesome things to survive.

<old man rant> What is it with people who decide to pull out their phones and video the fire instead of actually helping people get out? </old man rant>

On 1/1/2026 at 2:20 PM, Wally Fairway said:

Was Great White playing at that bar? (too soon?)

Only 40 killed, so must have been a Great White cover band.

2 hours ago, TxEx84 said:

<old man rant> What is it with people who decide to pull out their phones and video the fire instead of actually helping people get out? </old man rant>

I may be wrong, but those videos and pics being taken were by people sitting inside the club! Filming their own deaths. I have no idea what they were thinking.

57 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

I may be wrong, but those videos and pics being taken were by people sitting inside the club! Filming their own deaths. I have no idea what they were thinking.

"This is gonna be HUGE on my socials!"

They weren't wrong, unfortunately.

The video of the Station club fire has always stuck with me. It should almost be required viewing to remind people how quickly a fire can spread, and to be aware of exits when in crowded or confined spaces.

And don’t fucking pull out your phone…But we all know the human tendency toward voyeurism isn’t going anywhere.

Also, based on the graphics up thread, this place in Switzerland had just a single exit? Yikes. Even the Station club had multiple exit routes, but everyone instinctually crowded to the main one.

On 1/1/2026 at 3:23 PM, hookemATL said:

This was the first thing that entered my mind as well. Debauched and broken humans ftw!

Yeah that fire (along with the Coconut Grove fire) is a cautionary tale most firefighters learn about in detail during training. It was also the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this Swiss tragedy.

In the Station nightclub fire in R.I., the pyrotechnics were only the start of the story. There were also major issues with the exits. There was only one main emergency exit - the front entry, which most of the people in the club entered through. There were three other exits, but iirc none of them were marked as emergency exits, as one was behind the stage and was designated as an exit for the bands, and the other two were behind the bar and in the kitchen. So naturally most people tried to leave through the front door, which is what most people tend to do anyway. There was just one major problem. The front door opened inward. It should have opened outward and should have been equipped with panic hardware. Neither of those things had been installed, despite repeated directives from local fire inspectors. 90 people did manage to get out the front door, but when the fire got bad enough that people began to panick and also could not see, they flooded the narrow front entry hallway, trying to push their way out, which prevented the people nearest the door from being able to open it. They were jamming the door shut. 61 of the 100 dead were found near the front door. Sickening. The lessons learned from that single fire are extensive, and are the main reason why whenever I go to a club, movie theater, large opera house, stay in a hotel, etc, etc,the first thing I do upon arrival is scope out the exits and know which way I'm going if the shit hits the fan.

On 1/1/2026 at 7:43 PM, Bevo said:

This seems very European. Drunk bartenders, doing stupid shit. Poor fire retardation in the building with 200 year old wood rafters without fire resistant stain or fire resistant insulation. One exit that isn't easily accessible. No ceiling sprinkler system...

Yeah, now add flammable acoustic foam on the ceiling.

On 1/1/2026 at 8:09 PM, Ted Lange said:

Death trap

image.png

Wow. So needlessly similar to the Station fire. If these club owners had learned anything at all about that fire and acted accordingly, this wouldn't have happened.

For whatever laws and codes were violated by the club owners, they should face stiff penalties. These codes aren't in place for the hell of it or to annoy the owners and managers. They're in place to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening. You wouldn't believe how much grief some of them give FD inspectors, claiming they're just being harassed for no good reason.

54 minutes ago, LonghornSean said:

The video of the Station club fire has always stuck with me. It should almost be required viewing to remind people how quickly a fire can spread, and to be aware of exits when in crowded or confined spaces.

And don’t fucking pull out your phone…But we all know the human tendency toward voyeurism isn’t going anywhere.

Also, based on the graphics up thread, this place in Switzerland had just a single exit? Yikes. Even the Station club had multiple exit routes, but everyone instinctually crowded to the main one.

100% this.

Edited by wood

And a reply that includes graphic from the Rhode Island fire

Yep. If the fire reaches flashover conditions, even firefighters are in big trouble. Imagine what it's like for people without fire gear.

When the smoke starts to come down, that's a very bad sign. When it's up high at the beginning of the video, that's because the air temperature is stratified in the room, with hotter air & smoke at the top and cooler air at the bottom. The smoke is hot and rises. When the smoke starts coming down, that's because the rest of the air is starting to reach the same temperature as the hot smoke/air at the top ... i.e. all the air/smoke in the room is reaching the same extremely hot temperature. Eventually, even the smoke itself will ignite.

Edited by wood

Re: the Station, here's a drawing showing where the bodies were found. 61 bodies right near the front doors. The drawing shows the doors opening outward, but they actually opened inward. Had they opened outward, the death toll would have much lower.

Stationvictims.png

Thanks for this info from the firefighters' perspective, @wood . I'm a SME on building and fire codes for my architectural firm and two firm and non-negotiable parts of those codes in the US are 1) a minimum two clear and visible means of egress from any assembly occupancy of this size and 2) doors along an egress path of travel must open in the direction of travel (with very limited exceptions).

Europeans do a whole lot of things better than Americans. Fire safety is not one of those things (writing a white paper for my firm on the Grenfell Tower fire in London brought that home to me). When places like this are not in compliance with code, they need to be shut down until they are - no warnings, just shut down until they comply. This is basic design shit and it's there for a reason. Assembly occupancies are among the most stringent because they are dealing with large numbers of people who are likely not familiar with the space and who may be impaired. To hell with those who let this shit happen.

6 hours ago, flatdawgs said:

Thanks for this info from the firefighters' perspective, @wood . I'm a SME on building and fire codes for my architectural firm and two firm and non-negotiable parts of those codes in the US are 1) a minimum two clear and visible means of egress from any assembly occupancy of this size and 2) doors along an egress path of travel must open in the direction of travel (with very limited exceptions).

Europeans do a whole lot of things better than Americans. Fire safety is not one of those things (writing a white paper for my firm on the Grenfell Tower fire in London brought that home to me). When places like this are not in compliance with code, they need to be shut down until they are - no warnings, just shut down until they comply. This is basic design shit and it's there for a reason. Assembly occupancies are among the most stringent because they are dealing with large numbers of people who are likely not familiar with the space and who may be impaired. To hell with those who let this shit happen.

You sound like a woke idiot who hates freedom.

Stifling regulations are anti-freedom and pro-commie.

Interesting piece which, among other things, looks at the disputed question of whether the bar had more than one emergency exit on the basement floor. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/world/europe/switzerland-fire-avoidable-hazards.html?unlocked_article_code=1.B1A.1kSO.8wN4n7XVSLf-&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Interesting that the number of exits is in dispute. I'm sure the fire department investigators know the answer. They would have inspection records and pre-fire plans on file, and it would very likely still be physically evident in the building itself if there are actually two exits, if they were operable, blocked, or in disrepair (which is depressingly common). Most people think that when there's a fire, there's nothing left afterward but ashes. The truth is that hardly anything gets completely consumed by the fire, and the whole scene can be pretty accurately reconstructed, step by step. It just takes time and lots of digging through debris. They'll know the origin point of the fire, it's path, and the basics of the building, and pretty much everything that happened. It's just a matter of how long it takes.

Judging from the description of the location of a possible second emergency exit near the restroom, I would bet that if it exists and was clear and operable, it wasn't well marked with emergency exit signs leading the way out. This is also depressingly common. It's common for business owners to not take these simple things seriously and indeed to treat them with utter disdain. Especially - amazingly - many club operators.

The descripiton of the bystanders outside having to force the doors open to help people escape makes me think there was no panic hardware on the doors. But who knows? It's all so frustrating.

An ‘Avoidable Tragedy’: The Hazards That Led to the Swiss Fire Disaster

The fire that killed at least 40 people in a Swiss bar on New Year’s Day was made more likely by apparent flaws in the site’s design and management,

By Ségolène Le StradicPranav BaskarAurelien BreedenMichael Schwirtz and Samuel Granados

Jan. 3, 2026

Sparklers shooting foot-long flames. A ceiling covered in flammable foam. A crowded basement with a narrow staircase exit that became a choke point.

These are some of the avoidable hazards that fire experts, witnesses and a New York Times analysis of visual evidence suggest turned a festive bar in a Swiss Alpine resort into a death trap as fire tore through a New Year’s celebration, causing a stampede and killing at least 40 people.

Investigators have not yet provided a comprehensive account of what caused the fire at Le Constellation around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, which Switzerland’s president called one of the worst disasters in the country’s history. But the available evidence suggests the tragedy involved some of the same safety lapses that caused other lethal blazes in crowded venues, according to fire safety experts, including a 2003 blaze in Rhode Island that killed roughly 100 people and a 2013 fire in Brazil that killed more than 200 people.

The Swiss fire most likely began after sparklers — finger-size fireworks that send up a fountain of sparks and that were carried that night by some of the waiters — set flame to the ceiling, according to Beatrice Pilloud, the regional chief prosecutor. As fire quickly engulfed the bar, partygoers congregating near the dance floor recounted struggling to escape the basement through a narrow staircase exit that quickly became clogged. Though officials and neighbors said there was a second door for emergencies, several witnesses said they saw only the staircase exit and, after reaching the ground floor, some broke through windows to escape.

Videos show fire most likely started here, as foam on the ceiling caught fire.

fire-600.png

Note: Diagram is not to scale and shows approximate positions of important features of the bar based on interviews, as well as on photos and videos of the interior.By The New York Times

Richard Meier, a fire and explosion investigation expert based in Palmetto, Fla., said the evidence pointed to an “avoidable tragedy,” adding, “It is a lesson that we should have learned decades ago, but we keep repeating.”

The police on Saturday announced that they were opening an investigation into the two managers of the bar, on suspicion of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and causing a fire by negligence. According to the canton’s public business records, the two owners of the bar are a French couple named Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who opened Le Constellation in 2015.

The Morettis did not respond to requests for comment. In brief interviews with the Swiss media, they said they were fully cooperating with investigators and denied any wrongdoing.

“We can neither sleep nor eat; we are all in a terrible state,” Mr. Moretti told 20 Minutes, a local news site.

The Sparklers

As Noa Bersier, 20, a marketing coordinator, played billiards at the bar early on New Year’s Day, he noticed waiters hurrying to and fro, carrying wine bottles fixed with sparklers to various tables. It was these, according to the regional chief prosecutor, that likely caused the fire, sending sparks shooting toward the ceiling.

Pyrotechnics like sparklers are legal to purchase in Switzerland, but fire protection specialists have long warned against their indoor use. Photographs from the night of the fire show them being used particularly dangerously, with partygoers hoisting them aloft, close to the ceiling.

Mr. Bersier said he could not tell whether the sparklers set the blaze, but he noticed the ceiling had burst into flames shortly after waiters brought them out.

“It was as though all the ceiling had been soaked with something and instantly caught fire,” he said in a phone interview from the hospital bed where he is recovering from severe burns.

The ground floor of Le Constellation after the fire, in a handout photo from the Police Cantonale Valaisanne.Credit...Police Cantonale Valaisanne, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Steven Badger, an American lawyer who has worked extensively on cases involving indoor fires, said there was a well-documented history of risk posed by the indoor use of sparklers. “It’s shameful we continue to have mass casualty losses from this exact scenario we’ve seen over and over again,” Mr. Badger said.

The Flammable Ceiling

To explain how the initial flame spread so aggressively, experts point to the foam insulation material that appeared to cover parts of the ceiling. The foam, typically made of a synthetic material called open-cell polyurethane, is traditionally used for soundproofing and is highly combustible.

“We don’t allow this material to be visible in a room in Switzerland. It must be covered,” said Olivier Burnier, who directs a fire safety engineering firm in Switzerland. Mr. Burnier said that footage of the fire suggested that parts of the bar’s setup did not comply with local fire safety regulations.

Those regulations mandate that combustible materials may only be used if they do not lead to an “unacceptable increase” in risk, based on factors like occupancy and building layout. Materials that have a “critical” reaction to fire cannot be used inside buildings unless they are fully covered, the regulations say.

Footage of the bar appeared to show that the material covered much of the ceiling, and a regular who visited the bar earlier in the week told The Times that the foam had come unstuck in some places and was hanging loose by several inches.

Samir Melly was drinking at Le Constellation two days before the disaster, he said, when a friend who works in construction suddenly became fixated on the foam-covered ceiling, which he said appeared to be hanging loose.

“He was so focused on the ceiling because he was looking at it from the perspective of a construction worker,” Mr. Melly said. After the fire, Mr. Melly reported his friend’s concerns to the police, who summoned him on Friday to give testimony as part of the investigation.

Arnaud Trouvé, a professor at the University of Maryland in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering, said the foam should be the “first target” of inquiry because of its potential to drastically spread blazes. Similar material has long been a culprit in deadly mass blazes at nightclubs and music venues, including those in Rhode Island and in Brazil.

Mr. Meier said, “I can’t think of any worse material that could be placed on the ceiling of a public space,” adding, “In addition to burning, the material would melt, and burning droplets would further ignite materials below.”

The Exits

Survivors have questioned whether the bar had sufficient exits, with several describing getting caught in a crush on the narrow staircase to the ground floor as people desperately fled the fire. Others described smashing windows to escape, while bystanders outside said they had forced open glass doors to allow people to flee.

staircase-600.jpg

The authorities said the building had an emergency exit but did not specify whether it was on the basement level, where most people would presumably congregate. Swiss fire safety codes hold that rooms that accommodate over 100 people are required to have two “vertical evacuation routes” — like staircases — if escape routes leading directly to the open air are insufficient.

Davide D’Agostino, 56, the owner of an architecture firm located in the same building as the bar, said there was definitely an emergency exit because it came up in discussions with members of the building’s board when the Morettis took ownership. That emergency door, he said in an interview, was near the bathroom and opened onto stairs leading up to the building behind.That has raised questions about whether patrons had been made sufficiently aware of alternative escape routes, and if those exits were clearly marked.

Nestor Fischer, 17, who was outside the bar when the fire began, described how he and others struggled to force open a glass door on the side of the bar to help others escape.

“We tried to break it with a stool,” he said in an interview. “We tried hitting the window, but it wouldn’t open.” At some point, the door ripped off and he and his friends helped guide people out with the flashlights on their phones.

The Building Inspections

It was unclear to what extent the building had been subject to required inspections. The Crans-Montana municipality, which is in charge of regular building inspections, had not reported any fire safety issues to the Valais canton, the equivalent of a Swiss state, a senior canton official said at a news conference on Friday. But the official, Stéphane Ganzer, said he could not say how frequently the municipality had carried out those inspections.

Mr. Moretti, one of the bar’s owners, told the Tribune de Genève that the bar had been inspected by local authorities three times in 10 years and that “everything was done according to the standards.” But local law in the region calls for yearly fire safety inspections in buildings that are open to the public or present special risks.

“This type of accident with Swiss regulation is not possible,” said Mr. Burnier, the Swiss fire expert. “But we have one because we have a problem now in the application of the law.”

The municipality office overseeing public security declined to comment, referring questions to the police, who also declined to comment.

Edited by wood

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