The club in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, was called Le Constellation. But the terrible events that took place in the early hours of New Year’s Day, when 40 people died and 119 were injured in a fire, were not written in the stars.
They were the result of a series of systemic failures. Fire controls had not been enforced by the canton since 2020. Soundproofing foam, soft and highly flammable, had been stretched across a low basement ceiling. A fire exit had been padlocked to avoid paying for an extra bouncer. The main staircase, once 10 feet wide, had been narrowed to 3 in 2015. And then there was the “golden sprinkler”: a pyrotechnic flare attached to a champagne bottle, lifted toward the ceiling by a woman in a biker helmet and, eerily, a man in a Guy Fawkes mask.
