Le Figaro reports that a 76-year-old woman was killed in a fire on 10th March in the Grand Hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near Biarritz. The fire was reported at 05:00 and was extinguished by 15:00. The seven storey building has 52 rooms on the lower floors and about 30 luxury apartments on the top three floors. The fire started in an apartment on the top floor. 29 of the 50 building occupants had to be evacuated by the fire brigade. The fire has caused major damage at the start of the season, threatening the closure of the hotel and the loss of 50 jobs. The hotel was not fitted with sprinklers, which could have limited the damage. NFPA has data about thousands of fires in sprinklered hotels in the United States. Not one of these fires has led to a death.

Thousands of hotels have been retrofitted with sprinklers, including hundreds in Europe. Water mist is another option and dozens of European hotels have retrofitted a water mist system, which has more compact pumps and tanks, feeding smaller diameter pipes.