Passengers and a bus station evacuated after fire destroys a metro bus in Perth CBD
A fire broke out with passengers on-board a Transperth Mercedes Benz OC-500 gas bus in central Perth on Tuesday afternoon.
A Western Australia Public Transport Authority (PTA) spokesperson says no one was injured at the Esplanade Busport and the bus had fire suppression equipment installed.
The Department of Fire and Emergency services attended the scene promptly, extinguishing the fire but the bus was totally destroyed and the facility was evacuated in line with emergency management procedures.
All services in and out of the Esplanade Busport were suspended for about two hours on Tuesday and one lane of the five-lane bus port remained closed for damage assessment on Wednesday.
Passengers had to use the closest available bus stop following the incident and some metropolitan services were affected.
PTA is currently investigating the cause of the fire and will make the findings public in due course.
Eighteen services that normally use the bus port where the fire occurred were altered to depart and terminate on St Georges Terrace instead.
The Transperth gas bus involved is the same model on which several fires broke out in 2012 and 2013 and modifications were made to the entire fleet of OC-500’s following an investigation.