Ruth Sherlock

This fire happened during a crowded New Year's Eve celebration.

At about 1.30am, smoke was reported coming out onto the street.

Police say emergency services got there in minutes, but it was already too late.

The regional intensive care ward is full and some of those with the most severe burns have been flown to Italy for specialist treatment.

Well, I mean, just awful eyewitness accounts.

This was a basement nightclub and 16-year-old Axel Clavier described trying to get out from there to the BBC.

He says, we thought we were going to suffocate because of the smoke.

We didn't know where to exit.

There was a huge crowd and I was alone.

I told myself I wasn't going to make it.

He eventually did manage to get up the one narrow staircase and smash a window to escape.

Witnesses outside the bar described seeing people coming out, some of them with their clothes on fire.

And this is high season for skiing.

You know, there's about three million visitors to this town each year, according to official statistics.

It's believed that there are people from several countries among the dead.

Italy says six citizens are missing after the fire and 13 are wounded.

Well, officials have not yet confirmed a cause for the fire.

Two women who escaped the club told French media that they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders and that she was holding a champagne bottle with lit sparklers and that that had set fire to the wooden ceiling.

Videos shared on social media appear to show flames spreading above the bar.

And there's a YouTube video from 2024 posted by a channel with the bar's name that shows women wearing motorcycle helmets, carrying bottles of alcohol topped with sparklers as they walk through the establishment.