A Dutch tissue bank has donated 20,000 centimetres of skin tissue to Swiss burn units to help the victims of the fire at a bar at ski resort Crans-Montana on New Year’s Eve.

The Haarlem-based tissue bank sent off a third consignment on Monday, taking the total to 20,000 centimetres. Hospitals treating the victims have requested a total of 123,000 centimetres of skin tissue for transplants.

That Dutch donation can be achieved because of the close cooperation with transplant centre Nederlandse Transplantatie Stichting and the WUON tissue donation organisation, non-profit tissue donation organisation ETB-BISLIFE told RTL Nieuws.

All of the 40 victims of the fire have been identified. Some 116 were injured, 83 of whom are in hospital with severe burns, in some cases covering 60% of their bodies.

The three Dutch hospital burns units at Beverwijk, Groningen and Rotterdam had earlier made preparations to accommodate six of the victims of the fire but all have so far been placed in hospitals closer to Switzerland.

The events at the bar coincided with the 25-year commemoration of a similar incident in the Netherlands in 2001, when bar ’t Hemeltje in Volendam went up in flames on New Year’s Eve, killing 14 youngsters and injuring 180.

That fire was also started by sparklers, which ignited the tinder-dry fir tree branches attached to the café ceiling.