Pictured: How Swiss ski bar owners renovated club themselves – as they face manslaughter charges and say they are ‘very unwell’

Pictures have revealed how the owners of a Swiss nightclub where dozens of people died in a devastating fire on New Year’s Eve were involved in some work to refurbish the venue a decade ago.

French couple Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, who were in the bar when the fire broke out and suffered burns on their arms, opened Le Constellation in December 2015 after visiting the area years ago.

The venue, located in the center of the Alpine town of Crans-Montana in the canton of Valais, is at the center of a major police investigation after it caught fire at around 1.30am local time (12.30 GMT) on Thursday morning.

The inferno killed at least 40 people and injured 119; most of them were in their teens and twenties and had severe third-degree burns. Swiss officials confirmed 40 people died, while Italians said 47 people died.

Mr Moretti, who was not at the venue, told Swiss channel 20 Minuten for the first time since the fire yesterday: ‘We can neither sleep nor eat, we are all in a very bad situation.’

The pub owner also defended the nightclub’s security after it was revealed the venue was decked out with wooden furniture and a foam-style ceiling material, with only a single narrow staircase for revelers trying to escape.

Mr Moretti claimed the club had been inspected three times in the last 10 years, adding: ‘Everything was done according to the rules.’

He emphasized the couple – known as powerful figures in the Swiss hospitality industry – are cooperating with authorities, adding: ‘We will do everything we can to help clarify the causes. We are doing everything we can. “Our lawyers are also involved.”

Photos have also emerged on social media showing Mr Moretti taking part in renovations at the bar before it opened in 2015. In one photo, she can be seen smiling at the camera at the construction site in June of that year.

Another shows the French owner, who can be seen wearing a pair of blue protective gloves, being watched by a man operating a digger amid a sea of ​​flaming debris on the club’s lower level.

The French owner, seen wearing a pair of blue protective gloves, watches a man operating an excavator amid a sea of ​​flaming debris on the club’s lower level.

In the images on social media, it can be seen that the work is continuing and the panels, which are thought to have caught fire and started the fire, have been placed on the ceiling.

A photo has emerged showing the moment champagne sparklers set fire to materials on the ceiling of a Swiss nightclub.

The couple has already been questioned by authorities and may face manslaughter charges, according to Valais region chief prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud.

Pilloud said: ‘We assume the fire was caused by sparklers caught in champagne bottles. From there the ceiling caught fire.

‘We also look at what materials are used. Emergency exits, fire extinguishers and bar occupancy are also being investigated.’

He added: ‘Our investigation also includes foam in the ceiling. It is not yet clear whether anyone will face criminal charges. However, it is also possible to initiate an investigation for manslaughter.’

He declined to comment on whether any action would be taken to prevent the couple from fleeing Switzerland, stating: ‘There is no criminal liability at present.’

Stéphane Ganzer, Valais’ state councilor responsible for security, said he was not aware of any security shortcomings at the club, but admitted: ‘I don’t know when the municipality carried out the inspections. We have not received any reports of shortages. But we assume that inspections have been carried out.’

Pilloud said that a team of 30 people was involved in the investigation, but the priority of the authorities was to “identify the deceased so that the families can begin the mourning process.”

Chief Inspector Pierre-Antoine Lengen said at the same press conference that 30 more people were involved in the identification process of the victims, and that everyone was looking at the victims’ DNA and dental records, as well as any items they might have carried before they died.

However, Lengen acknowledged that this process would take considerable time and apologized to the families of those still waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones.

Regarding those injured in the fire, Pilloud said the number of people affected could still rise, given that many of those at Le Constellation had themselves hospitalized only a few hours after the fire.

Jessica Moretti, 40, (pictured) was inside the bar when the fire broke out and her arm was burned

Mr. and Mrs. Moretti can be seen standing in the bar’s basement during renovations in 2015.

Images from 2015 show panels on the ceiling of Le Constellation bar; researchers think this caught fire and started the fire

Mr and Mrs Moretti, who have a young son, opened Le Constellation in December 2015 after falling in love with the area they visited for a week’s holiday in 2011.

Featuring DJs and live music, the bar, which has an upstairs terrace and a club in the basement, has become one of the city’s most popular nightspots, with a clientele made up mostly of young and affluent winter sports fans and locals.

According to the Crans-Montana website, the bar offered an ‘elegant space’ and a ‘festive atmosphere’; online descriptions described it as ‘the place to be’ and popular with an international crowd.

It is also understood that it is one of the few bars in the ski resort that allows revelers to enter if they are 16 or over, rather than 18.

The bar’s success enabled Mr. and Mrs. Moretti to open two more restaurants in the area and establish a reputation as a hard-working and successful husband-and-wife team.

It was said that Mrs. Moretti, who was in the club when the fire broke out, suffered burns on her arm while her husband was working at another workplace. The couple are said to be in ‘complete shock’, according to sources.

Additionally, while the victims of the fire were still being pulled from the rubble of the club, it was revealed that the club’s social media pages on Instagram and Facebook were deleted earlier today.

Mr. Moretti described how he opened Le Constellation, located in a previously abandoned building, after doing most of the construction work himself for about six months.

Footage shows the deadly flash, in which extreme heat caused everything inside the enclosure to ignite almost simultaneously, leaving people with little chance of escape

Footage from the evening showed a brave reveler trying to extinguish the first flames as flames spread across the wooden ceiling of the cramped basement bar in southwestern Switzerland.

Despite their best efforts, the fire would soon engulf the crowded basement, climb up the narrow wooden stairs, and unleash explosions so deafening that residents feared a terrorist attack.

He and his wife first visited Crans-Montana in 2011 ‘after hearing about it from Swiss customers’, according to local newspaper Le Nouvelliste. The article describes how the couple fell in love with the resort and decided to start a business there.

He added that they found Le Constellation in the center of Crans for sale and signed an agreement to take over it in June 2015.

They worked ‘relentlessly’ to prepare the club for the opening and had to completely refit the bar as it had previously been ‘left exactly as it was’.

Describing his efforts to open the club, Mr Moretti told the newspaper: ‘I did almost everything myself. Look at these walls, there are 14 tons of dry stone, it comes from Saint-Léonard!’

He explained how his bar acts as a ‘showcase for Corsican produce’, selling cured meats from the island, wines, beers, myrtle liqueur and even chestnut-flavoured whiskies, as well as more local Swiss produce.

Mr Moretti admitted he “felt at home” in the Swiss resort, telling his local interviewer: “You know, we’re the same. We’re mountain people first and foremost. Stubborn, but above all very kind.”

Another article published last year in the French-language magazine Altitude described Mr and Mrs Moretti as ‘full of energy’, adding: ‘Their slightly sing-song accent betrays their Corsican roots.’

Le Constellation’s success under the couple’s management led them to open a gourmet burger restaurant called Senso in Crans-Montana in 2020 and a Corsican-style inn called Vieux Chalet in the nearby village of Lens in 2023.

This led the couple to make plans to hold a Corsican festival in Lens, bringing in Corsican singers to perform in a church and on an open-air stage in the evenings.

While Mr. Moretti does not appear to have a visible presence on social media, his wife has pages on Instagram as well as Facebook and has a LinkedIn account that identifies her as Propriétaire, or owner of three businesses.

Security stands outside the sealed Le Constellation bar, where the dead and injured were found in a devastating fire during New Year’s celebrations in Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps on Friday morning, Jan. 2, 2026.

Sign of Le Constellation bar following a fire and explosion during a New Year’s Eve party that killed many people and injured others

Parents of missing teenagers are appealing desperately for news of their children as foreign embassies try to unravel whether their citizens are among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to hit modern Switzerland.

Police commander Frédéric Gisler said that all six of the 119 injured had been officially identified, but Swiss authorities had not yet shared the names of the victims or injured people.

According to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region, the injured included 71 Swiss citizens, 14 French and 11 Italians, as well as citizens of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland.

The nationality of 14 people is not yet clear.

Six Italians are still missing and 13 people are hospitalized, while eight French people are missing and nine are among the injured.

The first victim to die was 17-year-old Italian junior golfer Emanuele Galeppini.

British-educated teenager Charlotte Neddam, who had previously attended Immanuel College, a private Jewish school in Hertfordshire, is also among the missing.