Flares in champagne bottles getting too close to ceiling sparked deadly bar fire, officials say

Initial investigations suggest the fire that ripped through a Swiss ski resort bar on New Year’s Eve, killing at least 40 people and injuring dozens more, began when “fountain candles” attached to champagne bottles were brought too close to the ceiling, the local prosecutor said Friday.

“Everything suggests that the fire started from the lit candles, or ‘Bengal lights’, which were attached to the Champagne bottles. These were too close to the ceiling. From there, a rapid, very rapid and widespread fire ensued,” prosecutor Béatrice Pilloud said at a press conference.

Flickering candles are the type of candles available at retail and typically used for birthdays, officials noted.

Pilloud detailed what officials have learned so far as they continue to investigate what happened at the Le Constellation bar in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.

Authorities also say they are investigating whether a layer of foam in the ceiling related to acoustics complied with safety regulations, but have not yet reached any definitive conclusions.

For the moment, no criminal liability has been established.

Also on Friday, investigators continued the difficult task of identifying the deceased.

Dental samples and DNA used in the identification process

Emanuele Galeppini, a 16-year-old Italian international golfer living in Dubai, was the first victim to be publicly identified.

The burns suffered by the mostly young crowd were so severe that Swiss authorities said it may take several days to name all the dead. More than 100 people were also injured, many seriously. It will also take time to establish a definitive death toll, officials say.

“The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,” Crans-Montana Mayor Nicolas Feraud said at a press conference on Thursday evening, adding that this could take days.

Experts used dental samples and DNA to identify them, Feraud said.

Among the injured, 50 young partygoers have been – or will be – transferred to specialized burn units across Europe, Mathias Reynard, head of government of the Swiss canton of Valais, said at Friday’s press conference. The number of injured stands at 119, including 113 identified, they told journalists.

Parents of missing young people have launched an appeal for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies race to determine whether their nationals were among the victims of one of the worst tragedies to hit modern Switzerland.

“I’ve been looking for my son for 30 hours. The wait is unbearable,” Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, the mother of 16-year-old Arthur, told BFM TV, saying she was desperate to know if he was alive or dead and where he was.

“If he’s in the hospital, I don’t know what hospital he’s in. If he’s in the morgue, I don’t know what morgue he’s in. If my son is alive, he’s alone in the hospital and I can’t be by his side.”

In a statement released Thursday, Global Affairs Canada said it was not aware of any Canadian citizens affected by the incident.

Swiss authorities said Friday that 71 people injured were Swiss, 14 others were French nationals and 11 were Italians.

Reynard said experts used dental and DNA samples for the task.

“All this work has to be done because the information is so terrible and so sensitive that nothing can be told to families unless we are 100 percent sure,” he said.

The bodies of the deceased have now all been removed from the bar, a Swiss official told Reuters. Police were still on scene continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, which Swiss authorities said they considered a fire and not an attack.

Italy and France are among the countries that have declared some of their nationals missing. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani will visit Crans-Montana on Friday, announced the Italian Ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado.

The Italian Golf Federation said it “mourned the passing of Emanuele Galeppini, a young athlete who carried with him passion and true values.” The federation had designated him as one of the victims.

Australia also said one of its nationals was injured.

Swiss authorities said around 40 people were killed, while Italy put the death toll at 47, based on information provided by Swiss authorities.

Cause under investigation

Survivors and images posted on social media suggest the bar’s basement ceiling may have caught fire when flickering candles got too close, accounts that appear to confirm investigators’ initial findings.

Citing the Swiss attorney general, the Italian foreign minister said dozens of interviews had already been conducted.

“The goal is to determine who is responsible for this immense tragedy,” Tajani said. “Something was missing, something was not working, but it will be up to the courts to investigate and establish responsibilities.”

The inhabitants of Crans-Montana, which has the particularity of being not only a popular destination for skiers, but also golfers, were stunned by the inferno. Many knew victims and some said they were lucky not to have been there themselves.

French newspaper Le Midi Libre said a French woman had been identified among those killed in the fire. The French Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Hundreds of people remained silent near the scene as they came to pay their respects to the victims Thursday evening. Switzerland also ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast for five days as a sign of mourning.

“You think you’re safe here, but it can happen anywhere. They were people like us,” said Piermarco Pani, an 18-year-old who, like many others in town, knew the bar well.

Dozens of people laid flowers or lit candles at a makeshift altar at the top of the road leading to the bar, which police had cordoned off. Some were crying, others were kissing each other gently.

Behind the cordon, the bodies of some victims were still lying in the bar, said the police, who pledged to work 24 hours a day to identify all the people who died in the fire.

Kean Sarbach, 17, said he spoke to four people who escaped from the bar, some with burns, and they told him the flames spread very quickly.

Another person, identified only as Axel, who was in the basement where the fire broke out, told reporters he did not know how he “miraculously” escaped.

He said he turned over a table and hid behind it to protect himself from the fire, before going upstairs. “We couldn’t see anything, I was half suffocated,” he said. He used a table, then his feet, to break a window and get out, avoiding what he said was a single door too narrow for the many people trying to escape.

Dozens of people laid flowers or lit candles at a makeshift altar at the top of the road leading to the bar, which police had cordoned off. Some cried while others hugged each other gently.

“It could have been us,” said Emma, ​​an 18-year-old from Geneva, outside the bar.

“There was a huge line, so we decided not to go in” for New Year’s Eve, she said. “I see the ones who are missing and they are all people our age.”

Elisa Sousa, 17, said she was supposed to be there, but ended up spending the evening at a family gathering.

“And honestly, I will have to thank my mother a hundred times for not letting me go,” she said at the vigil for the victims. “Because God knows where I would be now.”