To view additional photos of the bus fire go to WKBN.com.
Crews worked to put out a school bus fire in Poland early Tuesday.
Bus 32 caught fire just after 5 a.m. at the school’s transportation facility on Dobbins Road, near Poland Seminary High School.
No students were on the bus at the time. No injuries were reported.
Western Reserve Joint District Chief Chip Comstock said the biggest obstacle was getting to the bus behind a locked gate. They had to use what’s called a deck gun to get to the fire before they could get closer. That stopped the fire from reaching to other buses.
“It’s a hard fire with the fire within the engine compartment. So we had to get that. It was difficult here because we had a hard time getting access to the bus through the security gate. Buses are big so there was a lot of fire involved,” Comstock said.
The bus’s engine block was plugged in overnight because of the cold temperatures. Fire crews say that device may have malfunctioned. Comstock said because of the amount of damage to the engine compartment, determining a specific cause may be very difficult.
One nearby bus sustained minimal heat and smoke damage, according to Comstock.
School officials say three buses are out of service.
The bus that caught fire is a total loss.
The Poland transportation director said they have enough spare buses in the fleet and no routes will be impacted.
