In the early hours of Jan. 1, 2026, a fire ripped through Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, killing 40 people and injuring 116, many of them severely.

Investigators believe the blaze began when sparklers on champagne bottles were held too close to the ceiling, igniting interior materials. The investigation is ongoing, and it is premature to draw conclusions about individual actions or responsibility. But fires do not need villains to be instructive.

What matters is not the spark itself, but the system into which that spark was introduced.

Fire safety, as history keeps reminding us, is not about eliminating ignition. We will always cook, heat, wire, decorate, celebrate and repair. Fire prevention is about ensuring that when ignition happens, as it inevitably will, it does not propagate.

My research has focused on how disasters are prevented, and how warning signs are missed when systems drift or protections are taken for granted. Fire safety is one area I have examined, and it reveals recurring patterns that are relevant to understanding this tragedy.

For one thing, fire behaves less like an accident and more like a virus. It spreads through available fuel, follows paths of least resistance and accelerates when conditions are favourable. The historian Stephen Pyne describes fire as a “contagion of combustion.”

Like disease prevention, fire safety has never relied on a single safeguard. Instead, it depends on........

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