Swiss bar where fatal New Year’s fire broke out had last safety inspection in 2019

Local authorities say fire safety inspections hadn’t been carried out since 2019 at the Swiss bar where a fire at a New Year’s party left 40 people dead and over 100 injured

Fire safety inspections hadn’t been carried out since 2019 at the Swiss bar where a fire at a New Year’s party left 40 people dead and over 100 injured, local authorities said Tuesday.

Investigators have said they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire at Le Constellation in the resort town of Crans-Montana when they came too close to the ceiling. Authorities are looking into whether soundproofing material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the bar managers. The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, according to the Valais region’s chief prosecutor.

Regional authorities have said that safety inspections are the responsibility of the municipality. On Tuesday, the Crans-Montana municipality said that inspections of Le Constellation that included fire safety checks had been carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and that modifications had been requested — but no issues with soundproofing measures had been raised.

The local council discovered after consulting documents after the fire that “periodic checks were not carried out between 2020 and 2025,” the head of Crans-Montana’s municipal government, Nicolas Féraud, told a news conference.

“We regret this bitterly,” he said, adding that it will be up to judicial authorities to determine what influence that may have had on the events that led to the fire.

Féraud said he couldn’t immediately explain why safety inspections hadn’t been conducted for such a long time.

Féraud said that, in September last year, an external expert had been asked to carry out a soundproofing analysis and had concluded that the bar complied with anti-noise rules, without making further remarks.

The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire that broke out at about 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples.

Investigators finished identifying the 40 dead on Sunday and said on Monday that they had identified all 116 people who were injured, from several countries.

On Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it was opening a probe to assist the Swiss investigation and make it easier for families of French victims to communicate with Swiss investigators. Nine French citizens were killed, the youngest 14, and 23 were injured.

Féraud said reports from the inspections that were carried out mentioned a maximum capacity of 100 people on the bar’s ground floor and 100 in its basement. It’s unclear how many people were in Le Constellation when the blaze broke out and investigators have said that may never be known.

The municipality said the bar’s owner obtained a permit to build a veranda in 2015 and also carried out interior work at the bar that did not require a permit.

It said it has now decided to ban the use of fireworks indoors and commission an external agency to carry out inspections of such establishments.

Swiss ski bar in deadly inferno had no fire alarm

The Swiss bar that was engulfed in a deadly inferno on New Year’s Eve had no fire alarm and had not been inspected in the past five years, it has been revealed.

Forty people were killed and more than 100 injured at Le Constellation, in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, when sparklers attached to champagne bottles set fire to acoustic foam on the ceiling.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning, Nicolas Féraud, the town’s mayor, said the venue had not been inspected for five years and had no fire alarm. The soundproofing foam panels had never been fire-tested.

He said: “No inspections of the Constellation bar were carried out between 2020 and 2025. We deeply regret this. We’re profoundly sorry about that, and I know how hard that will be for the families.”

Asked why there were no checks, he added: “I have no answer for you today.”

Nicolas Feraud, the mayor of Crans-Montana, and the deputy mayor, Nicole Bonvin Clivaz, gave an update on the investigation into the fire at Le Constellation – Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

There was no fire alarm on the premises because “it is not a requirement in such establishments”.

Mr Féraud revealed that “no application was made for the interior work on the Constellation bar” but added that the owner of the establishment “was not required to do so”.

The owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, are under criminal investigation. They carried out refurbishment work in the venue in 2015.

Mr Féraud said all types of fireworks, including sparklers, would be banned indoors, and that the municipality would commission a specialist external agency to inspect all establishments.

On Tuesday, it emerged that a barman warned six years ago of the dangers of partygoers waving around sparkling candles beneath the venue’s ceiling.

In video footage obtained by the Swiss broadcaster RTS, the barman is heard to shout: “Faites gaffes à la mousses! Faites gaffes à la mousses!” – “Watch out for the foam!” – as partygoers celebrated with sparklers in champagne bottles during a New Year’s Eve party at Le Constellation in 2019.

The video footage from six years ago and the urgent warnings by the barman prompted questions about why partygoers were still allowed to wave around sparkling candles in the packed venue.

The footage was sent to Radio Television Suisse (RTS) by a young woman who attended the New Year’s Eve party at Le Constellation in 2019.

The woman, who was not identified, told RTS that she remembered sparklers being waved “very, very close to the ceiling”.

That prompted a staff member to tell her and her friends: “Watch out for the foam, watch out for the foam.”

She added: “He said it very distinctly. I think that, as an adult, he realised there might be a risk.”

Mr and Mrs Moretti are being investigated on charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence. They have said the bar’s fire prevention and safety measures were checked three times in 10 years.

Mourners light candles light candles for the victims of the New Year’s Eve fire at Le Constellation – Harold Cunningham/Getty Images

Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland has accused the bar owners of “ridiculous irresponsibility”, alleging that they put profit before safety.

Gian Lorenzo Cornado said there were not enough trained staff on duty, that emergency exits were not well marked and that the sound insulation material on the ceiling had turned out to be highly flammable.

There had been a “total absence of respect for the regulations”, the ambassador said, adding: “The whole thing is unbelievable. In Italy, a bar like this would have been closed down within 10 minutes.

“If it had not been for the ridiculous irresponsibility of the owners of the bar, these kids would today be skiing happily on the slopes instead of going home in coffins.”

The 116 people injured in the blaze include 68 Swiss citizens, 21 French nationals, 10 Italians, four Serbs, two Poles and one person each from Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Portugal and the Republic of the Congo.

There were also four dual nationals – of France and Finland, France and Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, and Italy and the Philippines.

The severity of the burns suffered made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. The youngest person who died was 14.