Fire investigation underway after a school bus caught fire in Gwinnett Co.
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A school bus caught fire Tuesday morning in Gwinnett County.
Fire officials said on April 24, they responded to a call at 7:34 a.m. of a special needs bus on fire on the 400 block of East Union Grove Circle, NE in Auburn.
Per Gwinnett County School officials, the school bus was pulling into Mulberry Elementary School when the driver noticed an increasing level of heat coming from under the dashboard of the bus. In accordance with GCPS safety and security protocols, he immediately pulled over and safely evacuated the bus. “To be clear, all the students on the bus were safe and never in danger,” said officials.
Per the bus driver, he stated he noticed there was smoke coming from the dashboard area of the bus, he immediately stopped and began evacuating the children from the bus. Shortly after the students were off the bus it caught fire.
Gwinnett County firefighters arrived on the scene at 7:41 a.m. just 7 minutes after receiving the call, they acted quickly to extinguish the flames and the fire was under control at 7:53 a.m.
The Gwinnett County School officials said, “The bus driver and bus monitor acted quickly and efficiently today. They relied on their safety training and executed it perfectly. As a result, no one was hurt, and the students were safely escorted into the building.”
Fire investigators are working to find the cause of the fire and questions regarding the students involved, the school bus and the driver need to be referred to Gwinnett County Public Schools.
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