Chamonix British Ghetto in Flames!

[bbirtle]

For those of you that know Cybar in Chamonix, well, it's gone:

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The thing has been burning for over four hours. Appearently started in the abandoned building next to Cybar, quickly spread through the guides office building, Cybar, Bar du Moulins, and (unconfirmed) Queen Vics. They seemed to be trying to contain it from spreading to the adjacent building where Le Bureau and L'Exposition is located. Basically the whole fucking block is in flames.

Perro Loco (best cheap pizza in town) seems safe so far, but the building right next to it is literally spewing flames so not sure if it will survive...

Everybody says there were no injuries or anything. Just a lot of ski bums now out of a job!

[hemlock hiker]

That sucks...Was it over that Muslim cartoon?

[natty dread]

Damn that's a lot of fire.
Not sure at what point those pics were taken, but it doesn't look like the FD is making a very effective attack. I visited the chamonix firehouse and there is no way they have enough apparatus or personnel to fight a fire of that size without lots of help. Kinda like when hellgate went up at alta, they had to get engines from down the canyon to come and help and it took them a long time to get water on the fire.
Hope everyone is safe, some of the apartments around there are total firetraps. When I visited sherpa's place a few years ago, I could not believe how unsafe it was. The french (maybe it's just cham, but I doubt it) either have non-existent fire code enforcement or no fire codes.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

Wow, crazy! Keep us informed. Hope they get the fire maintained soon.

[bbirtle]

Just took them I guess 45min ago... four hours into the thing.

There were six fire hoses going simultaneously when I was down there, one on a giant crane - obviously they've called in some help on this one. They were hacking away the roof at an adjacent building with saws ans axes. Plumes of smoke going up 100s of meters in the air, and a crowd of about 100 watching even though it's -10 C and past midnight...

Cybar is an old wood construction building - the whole damn thing is made of wood from the walls to the roof to the furniture.

I heard these guys talking that their friend was in Queen Vics and a guy knocked on the window and was like "you're building's on fire!" and they were all like "fuck off!" and then like 10 minutes later another guy comes running in screaming at them to get out... fire traps? I dunno, but definitely a lot more "relaxed" over here!

[TurxSki]

Bummer !
Do you think Bad Roo forgot to put that spliff out ?
Are there many muslims in Cham ??

[natty dread]

Just took them I guess 45min ago... four hours into the thing.

There were six fire hoses going simultaneously when I was down there, one on a giant crane - obviously they've called in some help on this one.

If that's 4 hours in, they are in trouble.
I guess they do things a little differently over there.
I've always wondered what would happen if there were a massive fire in cham...
They ought to have at least 3 or 4 elevated hose streams and many more than 6 hoselines operating on a fire of this magnitude. Shit, a good single-family house fire often requires 3 hoselines.
I don't even see any exposure protection lines, but the pics are a little unclear.
I guess it'll go out eventually, fires always do!
wow.

[shirk]

wow thats crazy.
With all the wooden structures soo tighly packed the fires must spread quick there in Cham. Hope they get it under control.

[splat]

I have some friends who have (had?) a shop right across the street from Cybar.
Struggling artists.
Hope they've found new digs since the last time I was there.
Cause that's a narrow street.

[bbirtle]

So it's 2:30 AM, I'm nodding off to sleep, so I figure hey let's go back down to the burning building for a couple more quick photos with the good camera instead of my crappy cellphone.

But I get there and the fuckers have put out the fire! It's still smoking, but it looks well under control now. Cybar seems completely gutted. The building housing Le Bureau seems undamaged. The roof of the Guides du Mont Blanc building next to Cybar has collaposed or perhaps just completely burned away. Perro Locco is still undamaged so my cheap pizza will still come, this is good news. Seems the fire did not spread anywhere else or across the street.

Ran into Pete - Cybar's computer geek, and a good friend, fairly drunk. After getting through "so do you know somebody that needs a computer technician?" a few times, he says they saw smoke and helped evacuate the building, walked outside to see flames "10 ft high" coming out the windows of the little abandoned building next to Cybar, where he said also they're sure the fire started. He confirmed no injuries. He said he's glad it didn't happen last night through, when the building - which houses five seperate and very popular bars - was completely packed.

Interestingly, his MSN Messenger ID was still online at 11:30 PM - I was just about to IM him to see if he wanted to go up skiing tomorrow - the fire started at 9 PM so the computers seemed to have put up a good fight in the flames!

[skea 457]

That sucks - I was there last year and it was a pretty cool place. That whole little lane was full of cool places and old buildings so I hope they rebuild with something tasteful.

[Idris]

!! !! Thats the second major fire this year in Chamonix. A month or so ago we lost La Cabane. It was a nice old wooden resturant at the side of the road between Le Parz and Les Tines

[Mrs Roo]

Do you think Bad Roo forgot to put that spliff out ?
Are there many muslims in Cham ??

You don't realise quite how WAY off you are with both of these comments

[Tippster]

Yeah. Roo uses a bong, douchy!

[bjtuna]

Damn, that place was cool. I hope they're well-insured :\

[edg]

Shit, Guides du Mont Blanc? Not good at all

edg

[SherpaStyle]

That's scary. After seeing how the FD reacted to a fire across the street from my apartment when I lived there, I was pretty paranoid. The climbing rope and harness were always close to the balcony after natty made me realize how dangerous that apartment was. Cybar was a cool place, lots of British ski bums without jobs now.

[Redskea]

I'm surprised that the local fire department bothered to show up for a British business.

[splat]

I'm surprised that the local fire department bothered to show up for a British business.

Yeah, no kiddin.
Then they realized the Brits would now be frequenting the French bars and put it out!

[0BernhardFranz]

real strange just today ... prob because of the cham ai expedition ? prob arson ?

[0BernhardFranz]

i know this doode called freyer and he is from offenbach he drove by my house aimed gun at me and demanded my leg broken day beore i went to cham scared guides subjected and knee was torn still got pain i know all the jet set maybe now they paid them back
people got problems ... as if a piste was not big enough for all ...

[Hayduke]

i know this doode called freyer and he is from offenbach he drove by my house aimed gun at me and demanded my leg broken.....

I can't imagine why he'd want to do that?

[splat]

... as if a piste was not big enough for all ...

Stay off the piste, OBF. You'll find nothing but riff raff and troublemakers there.

[bbirtle]

I met with a couple now ex-employees of Cybar and got the scoop:

Cybar 2nd and 3rd floors are nearly completely destroyed by fire and heat, ground floor suffered major smoke and water damage. Good news is that it seems they can rebuild the top floors without having to raze the entire building.

Dick's Tea Bar is missing half a roof since the firemen chopped it down to dump water down it to prevent the fire spreading to that building - also obviously a lot of water damage. Queen Vic's undamaged from fire, but suffered some major water damage.

Queen Vics and Dick's are winter-only places, so they decided to close them for this entire season and have let go all their staff.

Le Burearu suffered some minor water damage and is expected to reopen soon. Perro Locco was undamaged and has reopened already. Other places on the Rue du Moulins were completely unaffected.

They plan to rebuild and reopen all three places as soon as possible - initial estimate is that it should take a few months for Dick's and Queen Vic's, while Cybar rebuilding is estimated to take at least a year.

So hopefully Cybar will emerge from the ashes and this icon of the Chamonix ski bum culture will be running strong for years to come.

[0BernhardFranz]

why he wanted to do that ... cause they beat him up as he tried to take over us companies owned by friends of mine faking legal facts
stay off the piste ... a french copess told me just that that she thinks i may get attacked if i didn´t by some criminals the police suspected that were after controlling rich friends assets - but i went and it was fine