An electric school bus carrying five children caught fire in Montreal on Tuesday morning, thankfully everyone on board escaped unharmed. The EV buses are also used in some American school districts.
CBC reports that an electric school bus transporting five elementary school students in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood suddenly caught fire this week. The fire grew quickly, prompting multiple 911 calls around 8:00 a.m.
According to the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), the province’s largest school service center, the alert bus driver noticed an unusual odor and immediately parked the vehicle. Acting swiftly, the driver evacuated himself and the five children from the bus before the flames engulfed it. Thanks to the driver’s quick thinking and prompt action, all occupants of the bus escaped unharmed.
The Montreal fire department responded to the scene, with four firefighters working to extinguish the blaze. A spokesperson for the fire department stated that the driver had just turned off the heating system when he noticed smoke rising from the vents, leading to the evacuation.
The school bus, manufactured by LION (formerly Lion Electric), has come under scrutiny following the company’s recent financial struggles. LION went into creditor protection in December after failing to secure new investments from the Quebec government. In May, a group of investors relaunched the company, focusing exclusively on electric school buses, with around 1,000 in circulation across Quebec at the time.
Maintenance of these buses was supposed to be carried out by LION staff and gradually resume after the relaunch. However, it remains unclear whether maintenance services had fully resumed before Tuesday’s incident. LION spokesperson Loïc Philibert stated that the company is conducting an analysis to understand the circumstances surrounding the event.
First Student, the parent company of Transco, which owns the LION-manufactured bus, has also launched an investigation into the cause of the fire. The company praised the bus driver for their swift and appropriate response, ensuring the safety of everyone on board. They also expressed gratitude to the local fire department for their prompt and professional handling of the situation.
Breitbart News previously reported that some American school districts are dumping their Lion Electric EV buses in favor of traditional diesel vehicles because they are difficult to maintain:
The return to diesel school buses comes as Quebec-based Lion Electric, which the Biden administration awarded $159 million “to manufacture 435 school buses between 2022 and 2024,” has fallen into bankruptcy, according to the Washington Free Beacon. As a result, the company has “warned school districts that its dire financial straits prevent it from servicing” the electric school buses.
Several superintendents explained to the outlet that while they would try to keep the “electric fleet” of school buses operating “for as long as possible,” they would eventually have to “return to diesel” due to diesel school buses being more affordable.
“We are going to keep our electric fleet on the roads for as long as possible,” Mike Leskowich, who serves as the superintendent of the Homer Community School District in Michigan, told the outlet. Leskowich’s school district “received $2.8 million in federal funding to procure seven Lion buses in 2022.”
Read more at CBC here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
