A school bus in the Cleveland area was carrying 15 students when it caught fire during its morning route to Monticello Middle School. No injuries were reported, thanks largely to the swift actions of the school bus driver who has elected to remain anonymous.
The bus was moving along its normal morning route, already having picked up 15 kids, when flames started shooting out from behind one of the rear wheels. Liz Kirby, the Superintendent for the Cleveland Heights University-Heights City School District, was quoted by NBC News as saying that she “can’t express how relieved I am that no one was hurt, and I am incredibly grateful for the quick response from the driver.”
Kirby then offered at least partial credit to the annual bus evacuation drills that drivers conduct with students to ensure that everyone knows how to handle a bus emergency should one arise.
School Bus Catches Fire in Cleveland, No Injuries Reported
The driver didn’t do anything special. There is no particular act of heroism involved other than just straightforwardly following the guidelines established by the evacuation drill.
There was no bursting out of the flames seconds before the bus exploded while draped in children with sooty faces. This was real-life heroism. The kind that makes a school superintendent say such grounded, levelheaded stuff like, “I also must credit the students for reacting so calmly and following the driver’s instructions to get to safety.”
There’s footage of the bus on fire, but no footage of the evacuation, which I would love to see because it sounds like the most polite and orderly response to being in a flaming vehicle in the history of flaming vehicles.
As a kid who despised going to school, I naturally would’ve assumed that I to be excused from school that day, because of the bus fire. Maybe I should take a day to just chill, play a little Fortnite or something to unwind. Unfortunately, or maybe very fortunately, the most painful thing these kids experienced was having to go to school after their school bus caught fire, eventually engulfing the entire bus, turning it into a raging inferno in the middle of an idyllic suburban American street.
The upshot is at least they had a hell of a story to tell the class during every period for the entire day. That was sure to eat up at least 10 to 15 minutes of class time. By the time the teacher settled things down and got things back on track, there’d only be like 25 minutes left actually do anything. So, functionally, it’s like they got a half day.
The Cleveland Heights fire department quickly controlled the flames, though an investigation by the fire department, the district, and the State Highway Patrol will be needed to determine the cause of the fire. The bus had just passed a state inspection on February 14, 2025.
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