A fire which ripped through a Nottinghamshire bus has been described as looking like a "bonfire" by eyewitnesses. The bus caught fire in Osier Drive, near the Sherwood Business Park in Annesley, this morning (December 9).
The driver of the trentbarton bus had to evacuate passengers from the threes service, including two young children, before the blaze took hold. Flames and thick plumes of smoke billowed from the bus - which was left burnt out by the roadside.
Emma Banks, 42, a quantity surveyor at the nearby Galliford Try office which took in the cold passengers, described the dramatic scene and aftermath of the fire. "Someone came into the office and said there was a bus fire, and I was like 'really?'," she said.
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"I opened up the blinds and there was this bonfire going off through the trees. There was a lady there with a pram and schoolchildren out in the freezing cold, so we asked them to come inside and had the kids running around the canteen for a while and gave them hot drinks in the conference room.
"The people just had to wait for the next bus - they were quite stoic about it to be fair. It was typical stiff upper lip behaviour.
"It was an absolutely huge fire - some of the guys went out and moved their cars to the back of the car park just to be sure. We offered the fire crew hot drinks as well but they were too busy at the time. They got in and got the job done.
"It was enormous - it was the entire bus. We heard it bang - some of the people in the office were a bit weary over it blowing up but it was fine, that doesn't happen."
Witness Shania Armstrong, who was on the bus when the fire started, added: "The time was 8.03am when smoke started. It was 8.12am when flames started. Everyone who is on the bus is fine. There were three adults, two teens and two toddlers."
The threes service runs from Nottingham city centre through to Mansfield. Part of the route goes through Newstead Village, Annesley and Sutton-in-Ashfield. A trentbarton spokesperson said: “One of our threes buses unfortunately caught fire.
"A smell of smoke was reported, and our driver safely moved all the customers off the bus and away to a safe distance before the fire became established. The cause of the fire will be investigated and we apologise to the customers whose journeys were interrupted.”
A Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: "Today at 8.06am, we were called to a large vehicle fire on Osier Drive, Annesley. Upon arrival, a single decker diesel bus was well alight.
"Crews from Ashfield, Eastwood and Hucknall were in attendance, using two hose reel jets and four breathing apparatus to gain entry to the vehicle and extinguish the fire. The Environment Agency were in attendance, and we left the scene around 9.50am after handing the incident over to the bus company and the police."
The spokesperson said the cause of the fire was accidental. They added: "It started in the engine compartment of the bus, and the driver tried to extinguish the fire with the small extinguisher on board, but the fire quickly took hold."
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