SARTA bus catches fire on I-77 in Canton
CANTON − A Stark Area Regional Transit Authority bus caught fire Wednesday night while southbound on Interstate 77, resulting in a traffic slowdown south of Tuscarawas Street W.
The bus fire was reported around 9:23 p.m.
City firefighters had the blaze extinguished in about 15 to 20 minutes after they arrived, said Canton Fire Captain Eric Dyrlund.
He said after the bus caught on fire, the bus driver was able to park the bus on the right shoulder and escape the vehicle. Dyrlund said medics evaluated him, and he was not hurt.
More:A sport utility vehicle, SARTA bus in wreck
The bus did not have any passengers, Dyrlund said. The 35-foot-long bus was powered by conventional diesel fuel. Dyrlund said that made battling the fire much simpler. If it had been one of SARTA's buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells or natural gas, putting out the fire would have been a more complicated task, he said. The cause of the fire was not yet clear.
About an hour after the fire took place, firefighters and SARTA employees were inspecting the bus for any signs of hot spots that could cause another fire. Much of the fire damage took place in the rear of the vehicle in or around the engine.
While the back window was smashed open, the back row of seats appeared to have avoided serious damage. The fire didn't apparently get as far as the bus' left side which featured a personal-injury law firm advertisement that said, "Hurt in a car? Call KNR."
Firefighters blocked off all three lanes of southbound I-77. Traffic continued moving south on the left shoulder. As of 10:29 p.m., the firefighters were waiting for a large tow truck to arrive to clear the bus from the highway. And they hoped to reopen all the highway lanes by 11:30 p.m.
More:Wrong way driver hits vehicle in head-on collision along I-77
Separate crash tangles Interstate 77
Sometime before 10:10 p.m., a multi-vehicle collision took place roughly a half mile north of the burning bus on I-77 south by the exit ramp to Tuscarawas Street W.
It appeared a sedan collided with a truck and sustained serious front-end damage. The car was in front of the truck and facing north. Parts of a vehicle and debris were scattered under and around the truck on the highway. At least two people stood in front of the truck. A tanker truck and a pickup truck were parked on the left side of the highway and at least three other cars were parked on the right shoulder. It wasn't clear if any of those vehicles were involved with the crash or if the motorists had stopped to help.
At that time, firefighters, paramedics and police had not yet arrived. It was not clear if anyone was injured. The Canton Fire battalion chief and some of the other firefighters who had responded to the SARTA bus fire had gone to the second crash scene.
It also was not clear if the traffic slowdown that resulted from the bus fire contributed to the second accident taking place. That further slowed traffic as vehicles exited on Tuscarawas Street or went south in the left lane.
As of 12:13 a.m. Thursday, tow truck workers were still working on removing the semi.
SARTA CEO Kirt Conrad initially said the bus was coming from Akron. But then he later said it was coming from the Belden Village area. It's not clear if the bus had made stops in both Akron and the Belden Village area that day.
He said the bus was not picking up passengers, dropping off passengers or servicing a route at the time of the fire. The bus was on the way to SARTA's garage at its Gateway headquarters in southeast Canton.
The Ohio Department of Transportation's OHGO live traffic alert website said around 9:48 p.m. that there was a 17-minute slowdown on I-77 south around Tuscarawas Street W. At 10:10 p.m., it took about 10 minutes to travel from the Tuscarawas Street exit to the scene of the bus fire.
Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. Twitter: @rwangREP.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: SARTA bus on I-77 southbound in Canton
