Crans-Montana Fire: Bar Uninspected Since 2019, Owners Break Silence Amid Probe

A critical lapse in public safety has shattered the trust of the Valais community. In a stunning admission that has sent shockwaves through Switzerland, Crans-Montana officials confirmed that Le Constellation, the site of the New Year’s Eve inferno, had not undergone a single fire safety inspection in five years. While the municipality conducted over 1,400 inspections in 2025 alone, this specific basement bar—a death trap for 40 souls—slipped through the cracks completely between 2020 and 2025.

Mayor Nicolas Feraud, visibly shaken, stood before the press to deliver the damning news. "We bitterly regret this," Feraud declared, acknowledging a catastrophic failure in the chain of command. The law mandates annual inspections for such establishments, yet the files for Le Constellation sat gathering dust while the venue continued to operate. This administrative void proved fatal when sparklers attached to champagne bottles ignited the ceiling, turning the crowded venue into an inferno. The municipality has now pledged to commission an external specialist agency to audit all public establishments, but for the families of the victims, this bureaucratic awakening comes tragically late.

As the investigation accelerates, the owners of Le Constellation, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, have finally broken their silence. Facing severe criminal charges including manslaughter by negligence and arson, the couple issued a statement via their lawyers expressing they are "devastated and full of grief." In a direct response to mounting public anger, they asserted, "We will not attempt to shirk our responsibilities in any way," pledging full cooperation with the Valais prosecutor's office.

However, the spotlight on Jacques Moretti is turning increasingly harsh. Reports have surfaced detailing his troubled past with the French judiciary, including a 2008 prison sentence linked to pimping and recruiting young women for massage parlours. While the couple remains free without house arrest for now, the pressure is mounting. The prosecutor's office is meticulously reconstructing the chain of events, looking not just at the night of the fire, but at the management decisions that led to a venue crammed beyond its reported capacity of 100, operated by individuals with a history of legal non-compliance.

The statistics are heart-wrenching: the average age of the dead is just 19. This fire did not just claim lives; it wiped out a future generation. Among the 40 deceased, eight were children under the age of 16. The blaze also left 116 people wounded, with 83 victims still fighting for recovery in hospitals across Switzerland and abroad, many suffering from severe burns that will require years of treatment.

The tragedy is compounded by evidence that the danger was known. A chilling video from a 2019 New Year's Eve party, unearthed by Swiss broadcaster RTS, captures a bar employee shouting, "Watch out for the foam!" as sparklers were lit—proving that the staff and potentially the owners were aware of the flammability of the ceiling long before the 2026 disaster. This ignored warning now echoes as a death knell for the teenagers who packed the club to celebrate the New Year, only to be trapped in a nightmare. The sheer youth of the victims has plunged the entire nation into a state of profound shock.

The catastrophe at Le Constellation was not an accident; it was a structural inevitability. Investigations reveal that highly flammable sound-insulating foam had been adhered to the basement ceiling since 2015—renovations that the municipality admits were done without a permit. This foam, described as a primary fuel source for the rapid spread of the fire, turned the low-ceilinged basement into a furnace within seconds of contact with pyrotechnics.

The negligence extends beyond materials to basic operations. Reports indicate the venue was "crammed" with partygoers, potentially exceeding the capacity limit of 100 people for the basement level found in municipal files. Furthermore, the bar lacked an automatic alarm system or sprinklers—omissions that, while technically legal for a venue of its size and age, proved fatal in practice. "The security chiefs who inspected this bar between 2015 and 2020 should probably have been more careful," Mayor Feraud conceded. This combination of unauthorized construction, lax enforcement, and risky behavior created a perfect storm of negligence.

Switzerland stands united in grief. The Federal Council has declared this Friday a national day of mourning, a rare and solemn acknowledgment of the scale of this tragedy. At 2:00 pm, church bells across the nation will toll in unison, and the United Nations in Geneva will lower its flag to half-mast. A high-profile memorial ceremony is scheduled in Martigny, with French President Emmanuel Macron expected to attend, honoring the nine French nationals among the dead.

But sorrow is quickly turning to action. The municipality of Crans-Montana has immediately banned the use of indoor pyrotechnics in all public venues—a regulation that critics argue should have been in place years ago. "This tragedy could have been avoided," stated Gian Lorenzo Cornado, Rome's ambassador to Switzerland, echoing the sentiment of a nation demanding accountability. As the investigation continues, the Swiss public expects not just answers, but a complete overhaul of the safety inspection regime to ensure that such a preventable loss of young life never happens again.