INVESTIGATORS PROBE BUS BLAZE
A crowded OC Transpo bus caught fire Tuesday near Carlsbad Springs. No one was hurt, but questions remain of what happened.
OC Transpo is examining a burntout double-decker bus to find out why it caught fire while loaded with passengers in the city’s rural southeast Tuesday morning.
Troy Charter, the director of transit operations, confirmed at a press conference that it’s the same bus that went off an icy road and struck a hydro pole in 2013. But he also said bus No. 8010 has been in service safely since, and it’s too soon to speculate on a cause.
An investigation will likely take several days.
Passengers on Route 222 tweeted dramatic images of the blaze that engulfed the bus after 70 to 80 passengers were evacuated just west of Carlsbad Springs.
The city’s fire department said that the bus was completely engulfed when they arrived on the scene on Piperville Road between Anderson Road and Farmers Way. They got the call at 6:48 a.m. and had it under control at 7:08 a.m.
Piperville Road was closed for several hours.
Charter said the eastbound bus felt “sluggish,” so the driver called the transit operations centre and was advised to pull over at a safe location.
The driver, who saw nothing wrong on his instrument panel, asked the passengers to remain on board while he checked it out. Then there was a loud bang or pop, which Charter said was “mostly likely the tire,” although he did not want to speculate.
The driver asked passengers to get off, then noticed smoke and flames. He unsuccessfully tried to douse it with a fire extinguisher.
The bus, purchased for nearly $1 million, suffered “extensive” damage. The fire appears to have started at the rear of the bus near the left wheel well.
Staff will now do a thorough analysis of what happened, aiming to look at what can be done to prevent anything like it from happening again, Charter said.
“We do have 1,000 buses in our fleet, we move hundreds of thousands of kilometres every year,” he said. “You can have issues with fires on buses, there’s wires, there’s plastic, there’s brake drums that can seize — like your car. We have had events like this in other parts of our fleet, they still are very, very rare ...
“It’s one bus out of 117 (doubledeckers) and this is the first occurrence that we’ve had with a doubledecker bus of this nature.”
The same bus, which was purchased in 2012, went onto the shoulder and struck a hydro pole on Woodroffe Avenue during a run from Barrhaven on an icy, slushy day in April 2013. The incident cut off power to thousands of residents of the south-end suburb.
Charter pointed to a rigorous maintenance schedule: buses get a full inspection every 9,600 km or 90 days, whichever comes first. They also get a circle check by the driver before each shift and a look-over from maintenance staff as they come off the road.
The passengers on the bus were quickly picked up by another bus, according to Charter, who thanked them for promptly following the drivers’ instructions. The fire did not cause any other service delays, he said.
The driver, meanwhile, did exactly what he was trained to do, Charter said.