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Lessons have been learned' about fire safety.
Over New Year, new Year's Eve 2025, Hong Kong cancelled fireworks because of the recent fire in November 2025 multistorey residence blocks, with more than 150 believed dead.
A Fire at a night club in Switzerland, in Crans-Montana, a ski and golf resort village, with views of Mont Blanc, claimed lives in the early hours of January 1st 2026. The place is known for skiing races, bike races, and once being the former home of Katherine Mansfield, the author, and Roger Moore, Bond star. Currently it is the location of a school of hospitality management. Those who died or were missing were Swiss, from nearby Italy, and other countries, and were transferred to hospitals in France and Germany.
What lessons have I learned? Apart from the old adage that nothing good happens after midnight, partly, perhaps because people short of sleep, or taking alcohol and drugs to keep awake, take risky actions or are slow to react to danger, or are victims of others.
Every public restaurant or disco should have framed checklist, including,
number of fire exits,
numbers allowed in the venue
fire extinguisher type and expiry date,
staff and customers (menu) briefed not to allow candles, incense or fireworks, cigarettes,
flame retardant wall and floor coverings.
No highly flammable decorations nor furnishing.
Display Number to call for fire brigade. ... police .... ambulance ....
Fire brigade or others should turn off electricity, evacuate.
Close down dangerous places or those with two dangerous events in one year.
Ban moving flames - carrying cakes with candles, sparklers etc.
No flames above table height.
No flames within three feet of the ceiling - same as hobs under cooker hoods.
Sound/acoustic baffling should not be highly flammable.
A license for events and late night after midnight opening should require a fire safety check.
no time should be allowed to implement safety measures. They must be done by nightfall or the venue closed down temporarily until the safety measures are implements.
Fire drills should be held weekly, with instructions on fire safety read out.
All staff should read and sign that they understand fire safety rules.
You may be interested in the four Ps of fire precautions
Prepare
Plan
Practise
Prevent
I don't think it is appropriate for mourners to light candles.
After reading
Fire Extinguishers
About this, I checked the expiry date on my kitchen fire extinguisher. My home has a back door, plus windows for escape. Next job, check any property you or I are renting, letting or managing.
to my mind, two obvious fire preventions, all events for. Ban fireworks nights and have public displays or laser shows. Have dinners where people are sitting down, so that the numbers are limited. Ensure every person seated can reach exits in under five minutes without being blocked by long tables, which are a hazard, blocking escape. Do not block windows and exits.
No fireworks or candles indoors, only electric imitation candles. (My grandmother made this rule years ago, after a fire in her house when curtains blew across candles.)
No candles or sparklers in basements.
All flames, if any, to be kept on tables, nothing carried or lifted overhead. Give workers right to refuse to do any unsafe practice. Material which is flammable should be labelled as unsafe for ceilings, like the warning labels on night dresses.
I have noticed that many religious buildings have signs banning alcohol. Wooden and other religious buildings such as churches distribute alcohol, albeit in small amounts.
Religious buildings also sell candles or light candles to pray to deities or honour the dead. Also eternal lights burn.
Nowadays eternal lights and commemorative boards often have electric lights instead of messy candles which need replacing.
Fir Warning Signs And Banning Signs
Any building which has a flammable ceiling should have a sign saying, no naked flame, candle or fireworks allowed in this area, with a crossed out sign like a no smoking sign.
You can easily check websites for fire prevention and fire signs in your country or a country you are visiting.
In basement restaurants I ask to be seated near the door, staircase of exit. I ask if there is a back exit through the kitchen. Though the kitchen exit is good to escape terrorism, a fire is more likely to start in a kitchen.
Google fire safety signs and you will see signs saying
No smoking No vaping
No candles
No naked flames
Text and visuals for no fireworks.
The United Nations should make Dec 31 fire safety day.
I was surprised to read that they don't yet know the width of the staircase. An emergency services official with a tape measure could find this. An online researcher looking for the last sale of the building on Zoopla should be able to find a floor plan. The sales of any door would tell you the width of the exit.
Useful Websites
Fire Tragedies
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15427131/Swiss-inferno-nightclub-one-escape-route-wooden-furnishings-foam-ceilings-allowed-deadly-
https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-new-year-eve-fireworks-a
https://cfpa-e.eu/app/uploads/2022/05/CFPA_E_Guideline_No_9_2012_F.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Crans-Montana_bar_fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Qaraqosh_wedding_fire
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/switzerland-swiss-ski-resort-fi
Fire Prevention Or Escape
https://sprinklerdesigns.co.uk/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pomya-Emergency-Switch-Release-Security-
Travel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crans-Montana
https://www.crans-montana.ch/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fireworks_accidents_and_incidents
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