Seems like a totally random thing.
I can’t imagine the horror and pain they felt. That is awful for everyone involved.
No it seems like gross negligence
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but think of someone with a flare gun at Montreux
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That they can’t identify survivors is awful.
They can’t identify the living
one photo i saw it looked like there was baffling on the ceiling – noise proofing? I can’t imagine that wasn’t fire rated but you can see it catching light
few places feel safer than a swiss ski town when you’ve gotten through the day without damage. My heart goes out to these families, friends and survivors – maybe the last the most. What some had to do to get out is unthinkable
Sparklers on the champagne bottles
Uncovered sound proofing
Wooden structure
Basement
One narrow point of egress
What could go wrong
Sounds a lot like the same conditions as the Great White fire in Rhode Island
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Imagine being the party planner who was excited about this. Or worse, the anxious person if any who raised concerns…“Relax Bob”
I do know that this made me pause and look around the pub at the mountain we ski. Thankfully, it’s sprinklered, but also large windows encircle the outer walls.
Hard to say for sure without ever being in that sort of shit (and hope we never are) but I think we’d be Ok here. Thankfully.
Cannot imagine what those folks endured. Nightmare stuff.
- Jeff
today authorities are saying it was a flashover that caused such a high death toll.
In 2003 a flashover fire killed 100 people in West Warwick, RI at The Station night club. That lead to massive overhauls of NFPA 101 for assembly occupancies - if you wonder why everything has a sprinkler nowadays, it’s because of those 100 people. It also changed how long the path of egress travel distance is: in 2000, a night club with a sprinkler system could make you travel 250’ to an exit! 200’ even if they don’t have a sprinkler. Today, that maximum is 75’
The EU has a requirement for signs. Of course Switzerland isn’t in the EU. Each Swiss canton has their own building code (in German) but the VKF (association of insurers, publishes guides like FM if you want to have insurance) publishes fire safety requirements. VKF’s website is cloudfire hosted so it’s down… Only buildings with over 300 occupants require sprinklers and even then, only require a 30 minute fire rating to everything except the structure, that can be unrated.
Big tragedies tend to make big code changes. The 2026 Eurocode is already written and it’s only the second revision since 1998. I could see VKF making changes really quickly, but not EU as a whole. The Station fire didn’t get the NFPA updated for 3 years.
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I think someone was thinking it was terrorism. Probably disappointed it’s just negligence like you said.
Acoustic foam. Basically grenfell tower in a basement
It appears foam was a major contributors as we’re plastics with grenfell
The difference here is it does not appear to be fire rated - I wonder if the owners installed it post 2015 when they took it over
There’s all sorts of things that are messed up here, not least the fact that kids as young as 14 appear to have been in there without adults
That’s true but I would never have imagined it would happen in Switzerland. The trains are always on time in Switzerland.