Brazil police: Flare meant for outdoor use started fire; 234 dead

SANTA MARIA, Brazil— Penny-pinching by a band known for its onstage pyrotechnic displays may have cost more than 230 people their lives at a nightclub in southern Brazil, according to a state police inspector leading the investigation into this weekend’s deadly blaze.

Inspector Marcelo Arigony told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that members of the band knowingly purchased flares meant for outdoor use because they cost a mere $1.25 a piece, compared with the $35 price tag for an indoor flare. “The flare lit was for outdoor use only, and the people who lit them know that,” said Arigony. “They chose to buy those because they were cheaper than those that can be used indoors.” The repercussions of that choice continued to send shock waves through Santa Maria, a college town of 260,000 people that’s been stunned by the early Sunday morning tragedy in the Kiss nightclub. The Rio Grande do Sul state forensics department raised the death toll Tuesday from 231 to 234 to account for three victims who did not appear on the original list of the dead.