Police say blaze tore through crowded bar where people were seeing in the new year
About 40 people are believed to have been killed and 100 injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year’s Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, according to the Italian foreign ministry.
Swiss police confirmed several dozen partygoers were dead. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, the ministry said. It confirmed arson was not responsible, with the blaze thought to be the result of an accident.
“There has been an explosion of unknown origin,” Gaëtan Lathion, a police spokesperson in the canton of Valais in south-west Switzerland, told Agence France-Presse. “There are several injured and several dead.”
According to an eyewitness, someone held a champagne bottle with a burning Roman candle in it too close to the ceiling (iirc she was already high up on someone’s shoulders), causing a quick deflagration through the wooden structure.
Here’s an article with a picture showing the sparks igniting what seems to be very shoddily installed, uncovered isolation foam.
I have held off commenting on this disaster since I could not understand what happened to get so many killed.
Having seen the photo The Guardian published, I can now comment. “Egg rack” insulation foam (likely polyethylene or polyurethane foam or something comparably combustive) - added to the ceiling to achieve favourable sound absorption for performing music - is incredibly dangerous.
For a fast chemical reaction, you need:
Contributors to the casualty numbers likely were: narrow exit passage, overpopulation, intoxicated people. Sadly I suspect that a considerable number of victims died due to crowd crush. If 200 people are trying to evacuate a space and one stumbles on the stairs, crowd crush is what follows, and very few get to evacuate after that. :(
Condolences to friends and family. I hope that injured people will heal. Criminal liability for the installers of the material seems almost inevitable.
If you see a music venue that accommodates more than a handful guests practising egg rack foam, tell them to remove it unless they can prove it’s fire retardant. If they don’t, sadly I must advise contacting a local fire department preventively, to have such materials removed. A note about styrofoams: most of them are a class F material from a fire safety perspective - almost as bad. Needs to be covered with something from a far higher fire resistance class.
Notes: combustion test of PU foam, untreated vs. fire retardant
Oh-shit! That photo is going to be ‘exhibit A’ at someone’s manslaughter trial.
Ah, insulation foam would do it! Explains the dripping fire effect too.
Everyone was talking about all the wood in there, but I couldn’t see how that would have started it that easily.
Would have thought it would have had sprinklers though…