OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
1:20 PM – Friday, January 2, 2025
A devastating fire broke out early on New Year’s Day, shortly after midnight during New Year’s Eve celebrations at the Le Constellation bar in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana, Switzerland. The incident claimed at least 40 lives and injured over a hundred others.
At least 40 people were killed and approximately 115 injured, many with severe burns requiring transfer to specialized hospitals in Switzerland, France, and Italy. The fire has since being described as “one of the worst tragedies” in Swiss history.
Shortly after midnight, approximately 1:00 a.m. local time, the Le Constellation bar — located at the Crans-Montana Alpine ski resort — was reported to be at maximum capacity, turning away party-goers at the door since the venue was completely full.
Then, at around 1:30 a.m., the bar suddenly ignited into a raging inferno, with smoke emerging from the establishment. Firefighters and rescue teams rushed to the scene in just 5 minutes, but it was too late, as the bar was already heavily engulfed.
The party was held in a basement nightclub, with only a single, narrow flight of stairs leading to a door as a means of escape. As panic set in, a massive “crowd surge” occurred at the stairs, crushing and trapping victims in smoke as others fought to get their way up.
Swiss authorities have indicated that a flashover, a sudden and intense ignition of the entire room, likely occurred, rapidly escalating the blaze.
While the investigation remains ongoing, Valais Attorney General Béatrice Pilloud stated on Friday that the leading hypothesis is that celebratory sparklers attached to champagne bottles ignited the ceiling after coming into contact with it.
Eyewitness accounts and circulating social media videos describe bar staff navigating the crowded venue, including one instance of a bartender carrying a waitress on his shoulders as she held bottles topped with lit sparklers. These were raised perilously near the low ceiling, which was lined with highly flammable acoustic/soundproofing foam.
Survivors and Swiss media reports emphasized that this material most likely fueled the fire’s explosive spread, almost instantly.
Authorities believe that when the foam and wood ceiling became engulfed, they released super-hot combustible gases. Once the gases reached a certain temperature, every flammable object in the room ignited simultaneously, turning the entire basement level of the establishment into an oven in a matter of seconds.
Witnesses described a hellish scene, explaining that the venue’s music had been blaring while the ceiling was dripping fire, followed by a moment of total darkness, due to the thick, black toxic smoke filling the space — making it impossible to see or breathe.
Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was attending the resort on vacation, raced to the bar to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the flames. He described people suffering on the floor from excruciating burns.
“I have seen horror, and I don’t know what else would be worse than this,” Campolo said in an interview.
Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who escaped the inferno, says he lost his jacket, shoes, phone and credit card while escaping. Clavier also told reporters that he used a table as a battering ram to knock a window out of its casing, in order to escape.
“I am still alive, and it’s just stuff,” he said. “I’m still in shock.”
The majority of the deceased are young people in their teens and early 20s, due to the drinking age in this particular part of Switzerland being just 16. Crans-Montana is a very remote resort in the mountains with limited local medical infrastructure, which quickly overwhelmed rescue personnel.
Due to the horrific burns, authorities are still having a difficult time identifying the dead. Forensic experts, meanwhile, have begun using dental and DNA records to assist in identification.
“The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,” Crans-Montana’s Mayor Nicolas Feraud said Thursday, adding that it could take days.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Béatrice Pilloud, Attorney General for Switzerland’s Valais canton, said. “For the time being, 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.”
One identified victim was a young Italian golfer, Emanuele Galeppini, whom the Italian Golf Federation paid homage to in a statement issued on Thursday.
“Galeppini was a young athlete who embodied passion and authentic values.”
Crans-Montana is a popular ski resort, but also hosts international golf in the warmer months.
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