No fire safety inspections have been carried out since 2019 at the Swiss bar where a fire at a New Year’s party killed 40 people and injured more than 100, local authorities said on Tuesday.
Investigators said they believe candles flickering on top of champagne bottles set fire to Le Constellation at the Crans-Montana resort when it got too close to the ceiling. Authorities are looking into whether the soundproof materials in the ceiling comply with regulations and whether the use of candles is allowed in the bar.
The Swiss authorities opened a criminal investigation into the bar’s managers. The two are suspected of manslaughter, involuntary bodily harm, and unintentionally causing a fire, according to the Valais district prosecutor.
Regional authorities said safety inspections were the responsibility of the municipality. The municipality of Crans-Montana said on Tuesday that inspections of the Le Constellation hotel that included fire safety checks had been carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and modifications had been requested – but no issues had been raised regarding sound insulation measures.
The head of the municipal government of Crans-Montana, Nicolas Ferraud, said in a press conference that the local council discovered after reviewing the documents after the fire that “no periodic inspections were carried out between 2020 and 2025.”
“We deeply regret this matter,” he said, adding that it was up to judicial authorities to determine the extent of the impact it might have on the events that led to the fire.
Feraud said he could not immediately explain why safety inspections had not been conducted for so long.
In September last year, an external expert was asked to conduct a sound insulation analysis and concluded that the pub was complying with noise control rules, without commenting further, Feraud said.
The severity of the burns made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire that broke out around 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, requiring families to provide authorities with DNA samples.
Investigators finished identifying the 40 dead on Sunday, and said on Monday that they had identified all 116 injured people, from several countries.
The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office announced on Monday that it had opened an investigation to assist the Swiss investigation and facilitate the communication of the French victims’ families with Swiss investigators. Nine French citizens were killed, the youngest of whom was 14 years old, and 23 others were injured.
Veraud said reports from inspections conducted indicated that the maximum number of people was 100 people on the ground floor of the bar and 100 people in the basement. It’s unclear how many people were in Le Constellation when the fire broke out, and investigators said it may never be known.
The municipality said the bar owner obtained a permit to build a terrace in 2015 and also carried out interior work on the bar without needing a permit.
It said it had now decided to ban the use of fireworks indoors and to assign an outside agency to conduct inspections of such establishments.
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