Fire Consumes Shuttle Bus Near Annenberg Hall

Billowing smoke and flames drew gaping looks from crowds of students outside Memorial Hall around noon yesterday, when a Boston College shuttle bus burst into flames on Cambridge Street.

Cambridge Deputy Fire Chief Gerald R. Reardon said the flames may have been caused by an electrical fire near the driver's seat of the bus, although the exact cause of the accident is still under investigation.

The driver was the only person on the bus when the incident occurred and was not injured, he said.

According to Reardon, the driver pulled over just before noon when he smelled a burning odor, exited the bus and contacted the fire department.

"He did exactly what he was supposed to do given the situation," Reardon said.

A small fire continued near the driver's seat until the flames consumed the rest of the bus, sending a thick cloud of black smoke and a foul odor into the air, witnesses said.

"I was in Loker [Commons] and smelled something burning," said Lisa R. Racki '03. "I ran outside and saw this huge cloud of black smoke."

The Cambridge Fire Department arrived on the scene after the bus had been burning for nearly 10 minutes and quickly put out the fire.

Juliana Han '03 watched the scene from her third floor dorm room window in nearby Canaday Hall.

"When the smoke was coming out at full force, I couldn't see the face of Sanders [Theatre]," Han said.

About 200 onlookers stood by the scene at noon, just as students from the College's second largest class, Moral Reasoning 22, "Justice" were exiting the Memorial Hall complex.

Most watched the bus burn from the wall overlooking the underpass.

A loud explosion, which Reardon said was most likely caused by an exploding tire, accompanied the flames.

Han said she could feel the explosion shake against the windows of her dorm room. The explosion was also heard inside Annenberg Hall.

"It made a loud booming sound," said Kristin R. Hoelting '03. "It sounded like dynamite exploding. I thought there might have been a bomb or something."

"It sounded like someone was trying to knock down Annenberg," added Elli Thomson '03.

An officer with the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD), which responded to the accident before the fire department, said he had difficulty keeping interested students from approaching the scene.

"We got to witness the lack of intelligence of the Harvard students there," the fire department's Reardon said. "The officers kept asking students to step back, but they continued returning to the wall to look."

Some students questioned why firefighters didn't respond as soon as the fire broke out, considering that a Cambridge Fire Department station is located across the street from Memorial Hall.

"We were having a busy morning," Reardon explained. "All the trucks were out on various calls so we responded as soon as we could."

Cambridge Street was closed off to all westbound traffic for more than an hour. Eastbound traffic was diverted south onto Quincy Street.

The charred skeleton of the bus, which was completely gutted by the fire, was towed away a little over an hour after the fire started.

Officials from Boston College's transportation services office were unavailable for comment.

The driver of the bus is an employee of Boston Coach.

--Adam A. Sofen contributed to the reporting of this article.