B&T Owner Puts Thun Arson Fire Damage at 12 to 20 Million Francs

Karl Brügger, founder and chairman of B&T AG, told Blick on Oct. 31 that the fire that gutted the company’s headquarters in Thun, Switzerland, on Oct. 29 caused 12 to 20 million Swiss francs in damage.

The Bern cantonal police were called shortly after 3:10 a.m. on Oct. 29 to a fire at a gun business on Tempelstrasse, the force said in a release that day. The building was already fully ablaze when the first crews arrived. Fire brigades from Thun, Spiez and Steffisburg brought the fire under control, and the last of it was out by late afternoon. Nobody was hurt. An ambulance crew stood by as a precaution, and the streets around the building were closed with traffic diverted.

A day later the police said arson had become the leading explanation. Investigators now treat arson as the primary suspected cause, the force said in a second release on Oct. 30 issued with the Oberland regional prosecutor’s office. They asked anyone who saw anything suspicious around the time of the alarm, or in the weeks before it, to call +41 33 225 31 31. The police have not named a suspect and have not put a figure on the damage.

The building at Tempelstrasse 6, in the Allmendingen industrial district, is B&T’s registered seat. A Keystone-SDA reporter at the scene on Oct. 29 described the upper two floors of the fenced wing as the worst hit, with a blackened outer wall, burst windows and blinds hanging loose. B&T’s main building, flagship store and indoor shooting range were all damaged, The Firearm Blog wrote on Nov. 1 alongside a company statement that speaks of “the destruction of our operational facilities.”

A video circulating since the fire shows at least two figures in black lighting an incendiary device and throwing it toward a shelter stacked with wooden pallets, from where the fire spread to the building, Blick and the Berner Zeitung wrote. The clip carries the slogans “Fuck LBD” and “GL06” and the line “Swiss, France, Germany, in the street with Gen Z,” the NZZ wrote on Nov. 1. The GL06 is B&T’s 40 mm less-lethal launcher. French police adopted it as the LBD 40 and have used it against protesters for years. The yellow-vest movement called for a blockade of B&T over it in 2019. Police are checking the video’s authenticity and will not speculate on who set the fire, both papers wrote.

Brügger rejected the premise. French police buy their LBD 40 cartridges from the French maker Alsetex, not from B&T, he told Blick. Swiss police forces that use B&T launchers fire single projectiles, not rubber shot, the NZZ noted. Brügger said the company is insured and its survival is not in question.

“You can damage or destroy our buildings. You can destroy our machinery, equipment and materials,” the company statement reads. “But there is one thing you will never achieve: bringing B&T and our industry to their knees!”

The fire comes three months into a handover at the top of the company. Brügger gave day-to-day management to Reto Flütsch on Aug. 1 after 35 years, staying on as chairman to oversee “the expansion of the new branch with a production site in the USA,” B&T said in a July 29 release. On June 25 the company settled its dispute with its former US importer, B&T USA, took back the US trademarks, and said a wholly Swiss-owned US operation would follow. That operation, based in Tampa, Florida, says on its site that it fully launches on Jan. 1, 2027 and is signing up dealers now. Neither the statement nor the Blick interview addresses production in Thun or delivery timing for APC9 carbines, suppressors and other products.

The police investigation continues under the Oberland regional prosecutor, with the witness line open at +41 33 225 31 31. B&T’s US launch date of Jan. 1, 2027, stands as published, and the company has not said when it will report on rebuilding.