News THE BURNING QUESTION WRITTEN BY SEAN GALLAGHER | SEAN@STNONLINE.COM


“understanding the root cause and origin for each failure is crucial for prevention, especially in the fleet environment.” According to Dube, nearly 95


percent of the fires he investi- gated were caused by electrical faults in the battery, starter and alternator circuits. “Tere are variables in every thermal


S


chool buses are often touted as the safest mode of transportation for children. Collisions involving these vehicles rarely involve fatalities, the


cases where a kid is actually killed so atypical that they are considered happenstance. Tere are horrendous examples—take for instance, the bus driver who was texting while behind the wheel and killed three people—but they are outliers, and millions of children continue to ride the school bus throughout the year without incident. Yet, there still remain the minor mishaps


that involve school buses. Like fender bend- ers that send children to the hospital with treatable injuries or bus fires that force drivers and students to flee just before it bursts into flames. Te latter occurs just frequent enough that it warrants news coverage and discussions on prevention. It should be pointed out that like most things that involve the school bus, its dis- tinguishing trait of being the safest form of transport on the road has “prevented a lot of fatalities” during bus fires, according to Denny Coughlin, president of the School Bus Train- ing Company. “Tere are a few exceptions,” Coughlin said,


28 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2016


referring to the 1988 crash in Carrollton, Ken- tucky, that claimed the lives of 27 people after a drunk driver slammed head on into a convert- ed church bus that erupted into flames. He indicated that this was an extreme case that led to a number of federal school bus evacuation standards that have averted similar tragedies. Coughlin, a nationally recognized school bus expert, believes there are a number of pre- vention methods for even the smallest of fires; however, many of them are costly. He added that “evacuation training is paramount,” as opposed to spending the money on deterrence systems that will be used rarely, if ever. Vehicle fire investigator Norm Dube agreed with Coughlin, saying that evacuation training is a necessity for the safety of the passengers. “However, if an evacuation is required, a fail- ure has already occurred and an emergency has manifested itself,” he said. Dube, who is certified by National Associa- tion of Fire Investigators, has performed more than 200 thermal investigations on school buses over the last decade for First Group. He is now retired and is a consultant. While he said he sees prevention as being


addressed through education and the study of previous investigations, he added that


event, very few are identical failures,” he said. “As manufacturers are incor- porating more and more plastics into the interior of the buses, to remove weight and lower costs, flammability and toxicity of the substitute materials make the interior compartment more susceptible to fire.” However, like Coughlin men- tioned, Dube said fire prevention technology is difficult and expensive. He cautioned that the installation of these system could potentially have little effect on a fire if it originated, for example, between the battery compartment and the engine com- partment. Instead, Dube suggested that


fleets “work with the manufactures to make battery fastening systems for the electrical circuits designed to fail-safe. Use of steel P-clamps in the battery, starter and alternator circuits should be eliminated. Traditionally, these circuits are not fused and are powered directly from the batteries, which are energized at all times.” He emphasized that technicians should never deviate from the OEM routing along with the importance of training, as many of his observa- tions were “pro-active, preventive measures that can be successfully ap- plied to any fleet technician training program,” Dube said. For Coughlin, the most advanced


prevention system means little when, at the end of the day, “the life is what we’re trying to save, not the bus,” he said. ●


CELEBRATING25YEARS


PHOTO COURTESY OF FAZLUL KABIR


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