Swiss investigators believe sparkling candles atop wine bottles ignited
fatal bar fire
[January 02, 2026]
By JOHN LEICESTER, JAMEY KEATEN and STEFANIE DAZIO
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 deadliest
tragedies in Switzerland’s history.
Officials said they would also look at other safety measures on the
premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. The attorney
general for the Valais region warned of possible prosecutions if any
criminal liability is found.
Arthur Brodard, 16, from the Swiss city of Lausanne, was among the
missing. His mother, Laetitia, was in Crans-Montana on Friday and
frantic to find him. She held out “a glimmer of hope” that he might be
one of the six injured people who had yet to be identified.
“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” she told
reporters. “I want to know, where is my child, and be by his side,
wherever that may be — be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”
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 unclear.
An evening of celebration turns tragic
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 were still missing hours after the
disaster.
An impromptu memorial took shape near the bar, where mourners left
candles and flowers. 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 did 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.
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People mourn behind flowers and letters near the sealed off Le
Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured
during the New Year's celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps,
Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)
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.”
Servers arrived with burning sparklers
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 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.
___
Leicester reported from Sion, Switzerland. Dazio reported from
Berlin. Associated Press journalists Geir Moulson in Berlin, Graham
Dunbar in Geneva and Nicole Winfield and Giada Zampano in Rome
contributed to this report.
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