Five children safely evacuated after school bus fire in Montreal

A school bus carrying five children caught fire Tuesday morning in Montreal, but everyone on board was evacuated safely.

The call came in at 7:51 a.m., and the blaze was reported near the intersection of Jean-Talon Street and Victoria Avenue in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

The driver and five children, all about six years old, were able to get off the bus without injury. The children were taken to a nearby building while two police officers kept watch.

Fire crews arrived in under five minutes, and the flames were brought under control within an hour. The bus, however, was destroyed.

“The fire was not caused by the battery,” said Martin Guilbault, division chief with the Montreal Fire Department. “It has nothing to do with the fact that the bus is electric. It could have happened to any vehicle.”

He added that because the battery was not involved, it didn’t take long to contain the blaze.

In a statement to CityNews, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal said the vehicle was a Lion Electric bus operated by the private carrier Transco. The driver noticed an unusual odor and immediately pulled over to evacuate the students.

Another bus arrived to pick up the children, and parents were informed of the incident.

The service centre says all carrier vehicles undergo strict mechanical inspections and are relatively new. It added that it remains in close contact with the operator to determine the cause of the fire and stressed that “student safety is and remains our top priority.”

Guilbault said the incident is not criminal in nature, and while the cause has not yet been confirmed, such cases are usually left to insurance companies to determine.