Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Crans-Montana, Switzerland — Investigators said Friday that the deadly fire that tore up a popular bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana early on New Year’s Day was caused by sparklers on champagne bottles, which ignited the bar’s ceiling.
According to police, around 40 people were killed and dozens of others seriously injured. Most of the victims were just teenagers celebrating the holiday, and the intensity of the deadly fire has left authorities with a difficult job identifying the badly burned remains, which they say could take days, as desperate families must wait for news of their missing loved ones.
Swiss authorities said Friday that 113 of the 119 injured had been identified.
Béatrice Pilloud, prosecutor general of the Swiss canton of Valais, said authorities interviewed two bar managers to help them understand the internal layout of the venue and its capacity. She said the investigation was still ongoing.
A video has been released showing the moment a man unsuccessfully tried to put out the first flames in the basement of Le Constellation bar with a white cloth. The fire spread upwards to the upper level of the building.
In videos posted on social media, people can be heard screaming as dozens ran to try to escape through narrow exits. Many suffered horrific burns and smoke inhalation, and dozens remained hospitalized Friday across the country, as well as in neighboring France, Italy and Germany.
Some 36 hours after the disaster, which authorities said appeared to have been accidental, at least two dozen people were still missing.
Harold Cunningham/Getty 
The front of the bar was hidden behind a white barricade on Friday.
One survivor said bar staff inadvertently started the inferno.
“A woman climbed on another woman’s shoulders with two bottles and birthday lights exploded,” said Axel Cavalier, a 16-year-old visitor from France. “She waved them too high, they hit the ceiling and it caught fire.”
Lucas Rebot, 24, told CBS News that he and his girlfriend tried to enter Constellation at 1 a.m., about 30 minutes before the fire started, but were told the venue was full and were turned away. He said he had visited the bar a few days earlier and noticed at that time that the ceiling was covered in foam insulation, “like a music studio.”
CBS News partner network BBC News and French channel BFM TV released photos Friday that they say show the moment ceiling soundproofing was turned on just above people holding sparklers, as witnesses described.
Other witnesses relayed similar information. Authorities said early in the investigation that there was no indication of an attack or explosion.
“At no time is there any question of any attack,” Pilloud said Thursday, later adding that it was not clear how many people were in the bar at the time of the fire, but that its maximum capacity would be one of the factors examined in the investigation.
“Right now we don’t have any suspects,” she said when asked if anyone had been arrested. “An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to better understand the circumstances of this dramatic fire.”
Harold Cunningham/Getty 
Forensic experts, meanwhile, have begun using dental and DNA records to identify the dead.
Clavier said one of his friends died in the fire and two or three others were among those still missing.
“The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,” Crans-Montana Mayor Nicolas Feraud said Thursday, adding that this could take days.
Mathias Reynard, president of the Valais Regional Council, said it was essential to carry out this work “because the information is so terrible and sensitive that we cannot tell families anything without being 100 percent sure.”
One of the first victims identified was a promising young Italian golfer, Emanuele Galeppini, mourned by the Italian Golf Federation in 2007. a declaration published Thursday as “a young athlete who embodied passion and authentic values.”
Crans-Montana is a popular destination for skiing, but it is also an international golf resort in the warmer months.
Italian outlet SportMedia said Galeppini, originally from Genoa, was 16 years old. His father was in Crans-Montana and had spent much of Thursday searching for information about his missing son.
