Around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials say a SporTran bus caught fire near the intersection of N Hearne Avenue and Forum Drive. Thatโs near the newly opened Amazon Fulfillment Center and Caddo Correctional Center. Fire officials say the compressed natural gas (CNG) tank on the bus ruptured and started the fire. No injuries were reported.
As of 11 a.m. on April 17th, all of SporTranโs 40 CNG buses are back in service. The buses were inspected Wednesday night after one caught fire Wednesday afternoon when a CNG tank ruptured, the Shreveport Fire Department says.
SporTran CEO Dinero Washington says the driver of the bus did exactly as she is trained to do, which is to get people off the bus. According to Washington, the fire suppression system on the bus did not go off, which allowed the bus to burn and ignited the CNG tank, which is what caused the large fire.
Investigators are currently working with the bus manufacturers to find out what went wrong. Also, because of the failure of the fire suppression system, a third-party contractor was brought in to inspect all of the CNG buses. The buses have annual inspections on the CNG tanks and fire suppression units. The bus that suffered the failure, #201, had its last inspection Feb. 16.
A witness to Wednesdayโs fire, Jerry OโGlee, a retired law enforcement officer who works at nearby Patton Industrial Services, says he and a coworker were standing in front of the business when they saw the back of the bus on fire. Luckily, no one was inside, and they spotted the bus driver in a field nearby.
โOf course, I donโt know much about explosions, but we could feel the blast pressure. I think we were 100 yards away from it. It knocked the picture off the wall and stuff,โ said OโGlee. โApparently, the blast shook the building and knocked dust all over everything. A customer saw a big chunk of what looked like aluminum, about 10 pounds though that hit near our fence and was catching our grass on fire just a little bit.โ
