40+ Dead, Over 100 Severely Injured In Fire At Swiss Ski Resort Bar On New Year’s Day

According to reports, at least forty (40) people are dead and over 100 others severely injured after a fire broke out during New Year’s Eve celebration at a bar in the Alpine ski resort town of Crans-Montana in Switzerland. The deadly fire is said to have started around 1:30 AM local time (0030 GMT) early Thursday morning (Thursday 1st January, 2026), in a bar popular with tourists, called Le Constellation, as revellers rang in the new year. More than 100 people were in the building at the time.

Video from the scene shows orange flames and thick smoke billowing from inside the ground-floor bar and lounge. Screams can be heard as well as loud music. Several people were seen collapsed outside the building, which is located in the centre of the Valais resort.

pic.twitter.com/vZEpYR4lfq Several dozen people have been killed and more than 100 injured after a fire broke out at a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, Switzerland.

Watching people choose to film others being burned instead of helping them escape is infuriating in the…

— Υουκε 🌿 (@lagracelaverite) January 1, 2026

Valais Canton Police Commander Frédéric Gisler called it an “unprecedented tragedy,” and warned the death toll could rise because many of the injured are in critical condition. Meanwhile, Gisler said at a Press Conference, “The priority will be to identify those who lost their lives.”

President of the Swiss Confederation, Guy Parmelin, said that many of the victims were young people and the victims include Swiss residents as well as tourists from neighboring countries and elsewhere. “Behind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted,” Parmelin said at the Press Conference.

Pictured Above: Emergency personnel work at the site of the fire. Photo Credit: Denis Balibouse/Reuters.

Pictured Above: The interior building where the fire broke out. Photo Credit: Police Cantonale Valaisanne/AP.

The fire that devoured the Le Constellation in the Alpine ski resort town of Crans-Montana was first reported around 1:30 AM (7:30 PM ET on Wednesday), Gisler said.

While investigators are still probing the cause of the blaze, officials at the Press Conference said they do not believe it was caused by an explosion and declined to speculate on whether the fire may have started by festive sparklers. 

Valais Canton Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud said, “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack.”

Fire Officers arrived on the scene within minutes of the report and by 5:00 AM local time, all injured persons were receiving medical treatment and being taken to Hospitals around the country, said Mathias Reynard, President of the State Council of the Valais Canton.

“More than a hundred people were in the building, and we are seeing many injured and many dead,” Swiss Police Spokesperson Gaëtan Lathion said in an earlier interview with The Associated Press. “We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is an internationally renowned ski resort with lots of tourists.”

Investigations are continuing into the tragic incident. 

More on this as it becomes available.

This is a developing story - refresh this page for updates. 

[Source: NBC News]