Fire hits luxury hotel in French Alps, no injuries but scores evacuated

PARIS — Scores of people were evacuated after a fire swept through a five-star hotel in the upmarket ski resort of Courchevel in the French Alps late on Tuesday, officials said.

No one was injured in the blaze which started in the attic of the Hotel des Grandes Alpes at around 7 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Tuesday. It was still burning and belching thick clouds of smoke late on Wednesday morning, the Prefecture of Savoie region, where Courchevel is located, said on its website.

Officials said over 90 people were evacuated from the hotel last night, while the nearby Hotel Le Lana, which has nearly 200 guests, was also being evacuated on Wednesday morning due to risk as the fire was still ongoing. Staff and guests took refuge in other hotels, the local government said, while 131 firefighters have been deployed.

"They are working in very difficult conditions," Vanina Nicoli, the prefect of Savoie, told reporters. Four of them were harmed by the smoke, she said.

Firefighters managed to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings so far and no further evacuations were planned at this stage, Nicoli said.

The Gendarmerie was looking into what caused the fire.

Safety measures are under scrutiny in the region after a blaze in a bar in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana on New Year's Eve killed 40 people and injured more than 100, many of them teenagers. — Reuters