The reaction to the Crans-Montana fire was predictable: shock, and the comforting attribution of the tragedy to somewhere else, to different conditions, to a different regulatory culture. In Germany, hotel and restaurant properties regularly carry fire protection exposures that have not been examined by a competent authority for years. Statutory technical inspections — including fire protection — are required in German hotels every three to five years, depending on the federal state. In practice the intervals are frequently longer, the inspections superficial or, in some cases, absent entirely. Hoteliers typically lack the technical background to identify significant deficiencies, let alone assess their materiality. Where the building supervisor role has been distributed among several external service providers, serious conditions can persist undetected for years in the back-of-house. When a designer or architect arrives to manage a refurbishment programme and identifies what is behind the walls, the reluctance to be the bearer of difficult news is understandable — particularly where acknowledging the problem means reducing the renovation budget to fund mandatory fire protection works. But that reluctance has consequences. The practical response, for an owner without specialist technical knowledge, is to commission a fire protection concept (Brandschutzkonzept, BSK) from a certified fire protection specialist. Properties approved before 2002 almost never have one. The cost is typically in the low five-figure range. The report will identify all deficiencies visible to a qualified assessor — and it will require the owner to be willing to hear the result, however inconvenient. Where deficiencies are not excessive, a remediation plan can be agreed with the fire authority and worked through systematically over an extended period, spreading the cost over multiple years. Crans-Montana was not an accident in the sense of being unforeseeable. When deliberate avoidance is the policy, any absence of a loss event is the coincidence.