Flowers and candles are left near the Le Constellation bar after a deadly fire during a New Year's Eve party in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana in Switzerland on Jan. 1, 2026. Denis Balibouse / REUTERS

Fire safety inspections hadn't been carried out for several years at the bar where a fire that broke out at a New Year's party left 40 people dead and over 100 injured, local authorities said Tuesday.

Investigators have said they believe festive sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire at Le Constellation in the resort town of Crans-Montana when they came too close to the ceiling. Authorities are looking into whether soundproofing material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the bar managers. The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, according to the Valais region's chief prosecutor.

Regional authorities have said that safety inspections are the responsibility of the municipality. On Tuesday, the Crans-Montana municipality said inspections of Le Constellation that included fire safety checks had been carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and that modifications had been requested - but no issues with soundproofing measures had been raised.

The local council discovered after consulting documents after the fire that "periodic checks were not carried out between 2020 and 2025," the head of Crans-Montana's municipal government, Nicolas Féraud, told a news conference.

"We regret this bitterly," he said, adding that it will be up to judicial authorities to determine what influence that may have had on the chain of events that led to the fire. "We owe it to the families, and we will accept responsibility," Féraud said.

"This tragedy has brought a sentiment of uncertainty all across the region. We're now putting everything in order to reassure" people, he said.

Féraud said he couldn't immediately explain why safety inspections hadn't been conducted for such a long time.

He said that in September last year, an external expert had been asked to carry out a soundproofing analysis and had concluded that the bar complied with anti-noise rules, without making further remarks.

The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire that broke out at about 1:30 a.m. on New Year's Day, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples.

Investigators finished identifying the 40 dead on Sunday and said on Monday that they had identified all 116 people who were injured.

Féraud said reports from the inspections that were carried out mentioned a maximum capacity of 100 people on the bar's ground floor and 100 in its basement. It's unclear how many people were in Le Constellation when the blaze broke out and investigators have said that may never be known.

The municipality said the bar's owner obtained a permit to build a veranda in 2015 and also carried out interior work at the bar that did not require a permit.

It said it has now decided to ban the use of fireworks indoors and to commission an external agency to carry out inspections of such establishments.

Source