{"id":195389,"date":"2026-01-02T04:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T04:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/around-40-dead-after-fire-sweeps-through-swiss-ski-resort-bar-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T04:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T04:14:49","slug":"around-40-dead-after-fire-sweeps-through-swiss-ski-resort-bar-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/around-40-dead-after-fire-sweeps-through-swiss-ski-resort-bar-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Around 40 dead after fire sweeps through Swiss ski resort bar – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
Around 40 people are dead and around 115 others were severely injured after a fire broke out during a New Year\u2019s Eve celebration<\/a> at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort<\/a>, authorities said Thursday.
Calling it an \u201cunprecedented tragedy,\u201d Valais canton police commander Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Gisler said many of the injured are in critical condition.
“The priority will be to identify those who lost their lives,” Gisler said at a news conference.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said that many of the victims were young people and the victims include Swiss residents as well as tourists from neighboring countries and elsewhere.
\u201cBehind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted,\u201d Parmelin said at the press conference.
The new year was less than two hours old when the fire that devoured the Le Constellation in the town of Crans-Montana was first reported around 1:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday), Gisler said.
Investigators are still probing the cause of the blaze. But Beatrice Pilloud, the Valais canton attorney, said they don\u2019t believe the fire was caused by an explosion, although the \u201cmain and working assumption is that a general fire caused an explosion.\u201d
\u201cAt no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,\u201d said Pilloud. \u201cAn investigation has been launched, not against anyone, but to shed light on the circumstances surrounding this tragic fire.”
Pilloud declined to speculate on eyewitness accounts from The Associated Press<\/a> and the French broadcaster BFMTV suggesting the fire may have sparked by festive sparklers that set a wooden ceiling ablaze.
But Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived the fire, told the AP he saw waitresses in the bar with Champagne bottles with sparklers just before the inferno erupted.
\u201cI\u2019m still in shock,\u201d said Clavier, who told the AP one of his friends died and \u201ctwo or three were missing.\u201d
Firefighters arrived on the scene within minutes, and by 5 a.m., all of the injured were receiving treatment and being taken to hospitals around the country, said Mathias Renard, who is president of the state council of the Valais canton.
NBC News verified footage posted to social media that showed the building ablaze, with thick smoke billowing into the air as crowds gathered around and some people ran toward the scene. Screaming could be heard in the background.
Another video posted to TikTok showed emergency services on scene in the aftermath of the blaze and the area sealed off with police tape.
Martin Meul, a reporter for Swiss German-language daily newspaper Blick, told NBC News\u2019 British broadcasting partner Sky News that he was in a restaurant next door to Le Constellation when the fire broke out.
\u201cI went out to see what happened, and a lot of people were screaming and it was horrible,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people were trying to escape through the main door. I saw a lot of people on the floor, and I think these people were dead.\u201d
Parmelin, whose first day in office was on Thursday, wrote on X that the government\u2019s \u201cthoughts go to the victims, to the injured and their relatives, to whom it addresses its sincere condolences.\u201d What was meant to be a moment of joy turned into one of mourning, he added.
Out of respect for victims\u2019 families, Parmelin delayed a traditional New Year\u2019s address to the nation meant to be broadcast Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.
Italy\u2019s foreign ministry said in a statement that many of the victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns.
In a post on X, the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland urged American citizens in the country to \u201cnotify family and friends of their safety.\u201d
Earlier, R\u00e9nard said the sheer number of victims quickly overwhelmed the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital, forcing authorities to transfer patients to medical facilities further away.
A no-fly zone was established over Crans-Montana, which sits in the region of Valais, around two hours from the Swiss capital of Bern, to make it easier to evacuate the injured by air, local police said.
The Swiss authorities also established a reception center and helpline for relatives and loved ones of the dead and injured.
Crans-Montana is located in the heart of the Swiss Alps, just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn<\/a>.
At the end of this month, Crans-Montana is scheduled to host an international speed skiing championship called the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup<\/a>.
CORRECTION<\/strong> (Jan. 1, 2026, 6:01 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article included a misheard translation. Valais canton police commander Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Gisler referred only to patients in critical condition, and did not suggest the death toll could rise.
Elmira Aliieva is an NBC News intern based in London.
Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeAround 40 people are dead and around 115 others were severely injured after a fire broke out during a New Year\u2019s Eve celebration at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort, authorities said Thursday.Calling it an \u201cunprecedented tragedy,\u201d Valais canton police commander Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Gisler said many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-195389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}