A group of children was rescued from a school bus that caught on fire in Harvest Hills on Monday afternoon.
Witnesses said the bus appeared to be overheating in the parking lot of a strip mall on Harvest Hills Boulevard and the children inside were screaming.
Crews arrived and helped evacuate all 45 children from the bus. Onlookers praised the fast action by rescue crews.
"They got the door open, they got the kids out on the Boulevard right away and instantly the flames started and so they pushed the kids farther back, there were more police cars on the scene almost instantly and then the whole front of the bus was fully engulfed," said David Hartwick, witness.
A 10-year-old boy was complaining of smoke inhalation, was assessed by EMS and released to his parents. No one else was injured, but witnesses said the entire incident was frightening.
"The heat was really strong and I was parked quite a ways away and I had ashes floating on my window of my truck," said Hartwick. "It was nothing and within minutes it turned into a major fire."
Southland Transporation praised the children on the bus, saying they did exactly what they should have done.
“We are actually doing evacuation drills at the moment, at the schools they are carried out twice a year so these students would have been recently trained in evacuating vehicles,” said Jonathan Weal, Southland Transportation.
The bus was heavily damaged and had to be removed from the scene, and investigators are trying to determine what caused the blaze. A new bus was sent to take the rest of the kids home.
