The prosecutor investigating the fire at the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, in which at least 40 people died this New Year’s Eve, said the most credible clue as to the origin of the fire points to sparklers placed in champagne bottles.
Béatrice Pilloud, attorney general of the canton of Valais (where the ski resort is located), declared during a press conference that the pyrotechnic elements “came too close to the roof, which ignited very quickly and generally.”
This Friday, he explained that this lead, which is not definitive, is being followed after the analysis of the videos recorded with the cell phones of the people who were in the establishment, as well as the testimonies of survivors and the hearings of the two managers of the establishment.
However, Pilloud said it will be very difficult to establish the exact number of people who were present at the time of the fire, because a bar is a place where people continually come and go. Likewise, he reported that the managers of the bar testified as witnesses and that it will depend on what the investigations reveal if they maintain this condition or if a criminal investigation is opened against them.
The bar’s ceiling material was acoustic foam, which is highly flammable and explains why the flames spread so quickly. It will be examined whether the use of this material complies with current regulations.
Concerning the injured, the Valais canton police commander, Frédéric Gisler, increased the number from 115 to 119. The four who joined are people who went to the hospital alone after realizing that the injuries they suffered in the fire were more serious than they appeared.
Among the injured, 71 are of Swiss nationality, 14 French, 11 Italian, 4 Serbian, one Belgian, one Luxembourgish, one Polish, one Portuguese, while the nationality of the others is still unknown. Currently, 113 of them have been completely identified and the remaining six are still under investigation.
The cantonal authorities indicated that “the process of identifying the bodies continues unabated” and that around forty experts from across the country have been mobilized for this purpose. “But an internationally standardized protocol takes time,” they added.
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