Who is Asking the Fire Safety Questions on Your Behalf?

Photograph: Ibis Hotel, Malaga (Pedro J Pacheco)

Back in May, the Ibis Hotel in central Malaga (pictured) was gutted by a fire that began in a ground floor restaurant and then ripped through all four storeys of the building. The blaze burned for four days having reignited three times. This was partly due to wooden flooring and combustible interior materials that kept feeding hidden ‘hotspots’ long after firefighters believed the blaze was out.

Upwards of 100 guests had to be evacuated from the premises in the middle of the night. The local Fire and Rescue Service used more than two million litres of water in 12 hours in a bid to dampen the flames. Enough water, in fact, to supply a town of 20,000 inhabitants for around 12 hours.

For their part, investigators continue to examine why the fire compartmentation arrangements between floors failed so completely. Fire safety consultants reviewing the incident have since voiced their considered opinion that a working fire suppression system could have contained the blaze to a single area.

What stands out from this particular episode is not the reaction of the tourists who had been sleeping in the building hours earlier. It was the reaction of local residents and business owners alike, alarmed by the reignitions and the smoke subsequently returning to their skyline, who began asking publicly whether the building had been properly inspected and whether or not the city was adequately prepared for a fire like this at all.

The president of the old town’s Residents Association has warned the local council that the historic centre carries a particularly high fire risk, citing timber-framed buildings, a dense cluster of nightlife venues and streets that are far too narrow to be able to accommodate fire engines.

Bar or hotel?

The Constellation Bar located in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana in Valais isn’t a hotel, but the New Year fire that killed 41 people and injured over 100 in the basement of the premises on New Year’s Day most certainly belongs in the same conversation.

The venue was full of exactly the kind of individuals who populate hotels across Europe every season. The bar had not been inspected since 2019, despite annual checks being a legal requirement. Of 128 bars and restaurants in the resort, only 40 were inspected the previous year.

It has since emerged that a fire exit in the basement was locked and that members of staff had known for years the ceiling foam was a potential hazard.

A further fire on 12 July in a Bangkok bar is reported to have killed 36 people and left a further 70 injured. Local outcry has led to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration ordering inspections to be carried out at similar establishments. Officials have inspected 865 establishments to date and closed down 79 venues.¹

Locals – rather than the young skiers and tourists filling the bars of Crans-Montana in the early hours of the New Year – are the ones demanding to know why inspection procedures lapsed and who was supposed to be checking.

Pattern worth noticing

In both cases, the legislation existed. What’s far less clear is whether it was ever enforced and who was watching to make sure that was indeed the case. Whether it’s a hotel or a bar, guests simply assume someone has already asked these questions on their behalf. In reality, they rarely have.

Earlier this year, we wrote about a South Korean scheme making sprinkler status visible to guests before they book, precisely because nobody else was going to ask for them. Malaga and Crans-Montana are further evidence that the people who should be raising these questions – ie the travellers actually staying in or visiting these buildings – are the last to do so.

It’s only post-incident, when residents and owners alike are left staring at a gutted building on their own street, that anyone asks whether fire safety features were regularly updated and tested or sprinkler systems fitted and checked.

If fire safety regimes and the use of fire sprinkler systems are only ever interrogated in hindsight, then neither is really being checked at all.

Tom Roche is Secretary at the Business Sprinkler Alliance (www.business-sprinkler-alliance.org)

Reference

¹https://news.theonlinecitizen.com/2026/07/28/bangkok-orders-79-entertainment-venues-to-halt-operations-after-week-long-inspection