The looks of that timing is awful.
11 weeks later, the cantonal police finished reviewing all the video evidence available and published the first chronological report of the events. Report and the original videos are now part of the investigation files, lawyers of the victims will have access later to these files, report can be ammended, etc. Meanwhile, a summary of the report by newspaper le temps (in French).
First, numbers relevant to fire protection.
Of the 164 people, including 132 in the basement, first counted by police just before the fire broke out, the vast majority did not escape unharmed. The death toll reached 41, with 115 injured.
Previous reporting shows that the authorized occupation was limited to 100 people in the underground level because 2 emergency exists. Thus, 132 >>> 100. This one is full liability of the bar operators.
The 2015 regulations of the Association of Cantonal Fire Insurance Establishments (AEAI) specify that premises accommodating up to 100 people must have two escape routes. For the basement, the inspection reports for the Constellation building limit the capacity of this floor to 100 people in total, including the smoking room, according to the safety officer at the time, since it has two escape routes.
Next, 164 total people - 115 injured - 41 dead = 8 left the building unharmed. From a fire protection perspective, this is a huge fail. Sometimes a fire happens in a tall building with limited escape optins, on when everyone sleeps, or in a place with people with reduced mobility. Nothing similar on this case. Tragedies happen and will still happen, but the fraction of people with good mobility that escapes unharmed from a building at ground and -1 level should be the majority, not 7%.
1m30s from start of the fire until the smoke blocked security cameras. This is a proxy of the time to escape.
A door on ground level that people on the street tried to open to rescue people inside, was apparently locked/latched 1 min before the start of the fire.
The DJ (RIP) passed in front of the cameras in the underground level, first to reach for a fire extinguisher in the toilets, and then going towards the fire. One security guy of the bar (RIP) makes big gestures to the customers to leave immediately. They did what they could, but the organisation, the system, let them down.
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WTF?
Presumably that was coincidental, otherwise thatâs pretty damning.
Well, itâs the first description of the timeline of the events. It only says WHAT happened. The search for WHY is ongoing.
Also, if I remember well this was a service door for the bar (bottles in, trash out), not an emergency exit. If it had been open some lives may have been spared, but from the liability point of view itâs another thing.
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The French original has more information.
It could have been both.
It wasnât necessary that people died for cantonal authorities to look at hazards.
Anyway, someone remembered flooding, landslides and avalanches happen. 13 campings in Valais ordered to close due to natural hazards. Not related to fire, but itâs an improvement if hazards are not only something considered in documents and maps, also for the real world.
Dangers naturels: 13 campings vont devoir fermer en Valais (in French)
Treize campings valaisans pourraient ne pas ouvrir cet été Also, in French.
2 of the camping sites already flooded or the mud and debris flow (lave torrentielle) got too close in recent years.
The NZZ comes back today with 2 questions:
1 - How many people were in the bar at the time of the fire?
The police finished the sad job of counting people in videos, the estimate of how many people were in each room was published last week: 132 in the underground level.
2 - What was the allowed occupancy of the bar?
Iâd say this question is much easier to answer. No need to watch videos of people dying, go to municipal archives and find the number in the license to operate the business, right?
Not so easy:
- The license to operate does not mention the allowed capacity.
- The fire safety reports from 2018 and 2019 tell 100 people above ground, 100 people below ground and 50 in the fumoir. But, no clarification if the 50 in the fumoir count towards the max 100 underground because the fumoir was also underground.
- During interrogation, one ex-municipal worker said max allowed capacity = 200 people.
- The prosecution has 250 people in mind, and sometimes mentions 300.
So, 200, 250 or 300? Authorities are unable to answer this simple question 12 weeks after the fire.
Assuming the allowed capacity number is determined one day, the next question is to compare this number to allowed capacity based on fire regulations. Based on the size of emergency exits, an anonymous fire expert says: not even 50 people in the underground level. This may explain why the document stating the allowed capacity is lost. If found, it will sink someone or more than one.
Authorities are not up to the challenge. This issue was approached by le Temps, interesting speculation about the lack of checks and balances in power. In villages power is held by a few and things work. As population centers grow, this approach doesnât work, itâs impossible for 1 person to manage everything properly and catastrophes happen. I guess the lesson here is to keep the eyes open for those villages growing too quickly, the political system is unable to evolve fast enough to meet new challenges.
In Crans-Montana, in this city that wanted to remain a village (in French).
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If a fire exit is not compliant (open direction, locking mechanism, blocking, etc) it is deemed not to exist for the purposes of max pax calcuations. So if the staircase up was the only compliant exit from the basement, then that entire floor is 50 pax max. Canât say for the ground floor.
100+ days after the fire, itâs time for the president of the municipal council of Crans-Montana to answer some questions.
Specifically, why the bar was not verified during 6 years while the law says âyearly inspectionsâ. Hopefully, some administrative procedure will follow.