Swiss investigators believe sparkling candles atop wine bottles ignited fatal bar fire

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) – Investigators said Friday that they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited a fatal fire at a Swiss ski resort when they came too close to the ceiling of a bar crowded with New Year’s Eve revelers.

Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles, which give off a stream of upward-shooting sparks, were permitted for use in the bar.

Forty people were killed and another 119 injured in the blaze early Thursday as it ripped through the busy Le Constellation bar at the ski resort of Crans-Montana, authorities said. It was one of the worst tragedies in Switzerland’s history.

Many of the wounded were in their teens to mid-20s, police said.

Officials said they would also look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes.

Beatrice Pilloud, the attorney general for the Valais region, warned of possible prosecutions if any criminal liability is found.

The injured included 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, according to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region. The nationalities of 14 people were still unclear.

Among the crowd was Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris, who said he felt as if he was suffocating inside the Swiss Alpine bar where moments before he had been ringing in the new year.

The teenager escaped the inferno by forcing a window open with a table. The dead included one of Clavier’s friends, and he told The Associated Press that two or three other friends remained missing hours after the disaster.

Late Thursday, mourners left candles and flowers at an impromptu memorial near the bar. Hundreds of others prayed for the victims at the nearby Church of Montana-Station.

A French teenager on Friday brought a bouquet of tulips to the regional hospital in Sion for her best friend, a fellow 17-year-old girl who was badly burned and in intensive care. The two attend school together in Lausanne, said the girl, who was in distress and did not give her full name to the AP.

But when she arrived at the hospital, her friend had been heavily sedated for a dressing change and could not see visitors. It was the latest in hours of heartbreak for the teen, who had intended to join a dozen schoolmates at the bar but ultimately decided against it.

She said she has since learned that two of the 12 are in a Zurich hospital. She does not know if the others survived.

On Instagram, an account filled up with photos of people who were unaccounted for, and friends and relatives begged for tips about their whereabouts.

Valais regional government head Mathias Reynard told RTS radio Friday that officials have “numerous accounts of heroic actions, one could say, of very strong solidarity in the moment.”

He lauded the work of emergency officials on the day after the fire but added “in the first minutes it was citizens – and in large part young people – who saved lives with their courage.”

Clavier, the Parisian teenager, said he did not see the fire start, but saw servers arrive with Champagne bottles topped with the burning sparklers.

Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.

One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a flight of stairs and through a narrow door.

Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside.

Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was in Crans-Montana on vacation, raced to the bar to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the inferno. He described people on the ground suffering from terrible burns.

“I have seen horror, and I don’t know what else would be worse than this,” Campolo told French television network TF1.

The severity of the burns has made it difficult to identify bodies, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside turned to ash in the flames.

Emanuele Galeppini, a promising 17-year-old Italian golfer who competed internationally, was officially listed as missing. His uncle Sebastiano Galeppini told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died.

With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is a major destination for international alpine skiing competitions. It’s also home to the European Masters each August.