The devastating Crans-Montana fire claimed at least 41 lives, with over 100 injured, most of them seriously. People at home and abroad are asking how something like this could happen in a country that prides itself on rules, organisation and precision.
What should have been a night of revelry turned within a few minutes into a tragedy of historic proportions that continues to reverberate months later. Forty-one people lost their lives; over 110 were injured, most of them seriously.
We know the blaze began at 1.27 in the morning. Teenagers and young adults from Switzerland and abroad were celebrating New Year’s Eve at “Le Constellation”, a bar in Crans-Montana. Mobile phone footage shows a waitress sitting on the shoulders of a male colleague and holding a bottle with sparklers in each hand. According to the later reports in the media, the cantonal police incident report said that it was customary at “Le Constellation” to serve bottles with sparklers attached to the neck. The waitress’s bottles are too high in the air. Flames begin to lick across the flammable foam ceiling of the basement bar. Party-goers begin to flee the smoke. A “flashover” occurs at 1.28 and 12 seconds, suddenly transforming the fire into an inferno. The conflagration shoots up as far as the door to the veranda on the ground floor. Thirty-seven people are stranded in the basement and die. Three other victims lose their lives on the ground floor.
When a fire heats its surroundings to around 300°C, combustible gases from the fire can ignite violently. This triggers what firefighters call a flashover, with temperatures potentially rising to over 1,000°C. This can result in death or horrific burn injuries for anyone in close vicinity at the moment of ignition.
Treating such injuries is extremely complicated and often takes months if not years. Many victims are likely to have breathed in toxic gases that can lead to severe lung damage. In a show of European solidarity, other countries offered Switzerland support, enabling some of the injured to be transferred to specialist burns units abroad. Switzerland has insufficient hospital capacity for an emergency of this nature.
It was not only because the victims come from various countries that the Crans-Montana fire made headlines worldwide. The timing was particularly tragic: a moment of hope and optimism, barely an hour and a half into 2026. Most of the victims are young people, who not only had the new year but their whole lives ahead of them. The 41 fatalities include 20 minors, some of whom were only 14 or 15 years of age. For their families, life has been irrevocably divided into two parts: before and after the tragedy.
“Even the most civilised country can fail if its attention lapses.”
The disaster has shaken Switzerland, with a picture slowly emerging of a catastrophe that could have been avoided. Firstly, Jacques Moretti, who ran “Le Constellation” with his wife, had installed flammable soundproofing foam on the ceiling of the basement bar during renovation work in 2015. Safety officers from Crans-Montana council failed to notice anything untoward at the time – or thereafter. After 2019, the council no longer inspected the bar at all. And the canton, which has a supervisory duty, apparently did not check whether municipalities in Valais were complying with fire safety regulations.
Switzerland’s cantons have since suspended this year’s plans to relax fire safety regulations, which would have reduced the frequency of inspections and given greater autonomy to venues. The Crans-Montana tragedy has shown where a more laissez-faire approach can lead.
41 morts et plus de 110 blessés. Comment une telle catastrophe a-t-elle pu se produire en Suisse?
How could there have been so many lapses in a country that puts a premium on perfection as well as adherence to the rules? Aren’t disasters like these only supposed to happen abroad? We have seen deadly nightclub fires in North Macedonia and Brazil, where the rules, if there even were any in the first place, were nonchalantly ignored. But surely not Switzerland. The brutality and tragedy of the Crans-Montana inferno are difficult to stomach as it is, but a blinkered view makes dealing with the disaster a whole lot harder.
Maybe it also explains why some have been quick to point the finger at Valais, accusing the canton of lax controls and insufficient oversight. Because practically everyone knows everyone else and turns a blind eye in Valais. And then they keep quiet about it, don’t they? It is easy to forget that chumminess exists almost everywhere else in tightly knit Switzerland, where much depends on municipal autonomy, the principle of subsidiarity – and on people who take on public duties and responsibilities on a part-time or voluntary basis (militia system). A disaster like this, where more or less everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, probably could also have happened elsewhere in Switzerland.
The image of Swiss reliability has also taken a hit abroad, with an increasing amount of opprobrium coming from Italy in particular. Six Italian teenagers died in the fire, and over ten of their compatriots were injured, some seriously. The Valais public prosecutors have been slammed by their southerly neighbours for their allegedly error-ridden, amateurish approach, which, critics say, includes not taking the husband-and-wife owners of the bar immediately into custody, not confiscating mobile phones, and being slow to execute a search warrant that had already been issued on New Year’s Day.
Some may find this a bit rich from a country where levels of trust in the judiciary are among the lowest in Europe. Giorgia Meloni’s government has also been accused of using the tragedy to score political points at home – ahead of a March 2026 referendum on judicial reform that would broaden the executive’s influence over prosecutors and the courts – and of stoking anger to convey a specific message to Italian voters: look no further than Switzerland to see what can happen when you have an overly independent judiciary.
Others have struck a softer note. Italian newspaper “La Repubblica” writes: “Not only is it a tragedy, it is cultural breakdown. An illusion shattered by brutal reality. Even the most civilised country can fail if its attention lapses.”
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