Big scare for passengers on line 176. On Monday, the RATP bus in which they had taken place suddenly caught fire while traveling towards Colombes.
Luckily, the fire did not cause any injuries among the passengers.
In particular thanks to the coolness of the machinist, alerted by a warning light on the dashboard but also by the cries of passers-by, in the street, who saw smoke coming out of the engine, at the back of the bus.
The driver immediately immobilized the vehicle on the side of rue Victor-Hugo, in Courbevoie, and invited the passengers to get off.
“He then grabbed a fire extinguisher and almost put out the flames on his own before the firefighters even intervened,” said a police source.
Several bus fires in recent weeks
Despite the machinist's promptness, the engine block was completely destroyed by the fire which, according to initial findings, was due to a technical failure.
Several fires have ravaged RATP buses in recent weeks.
On April 22, a 100% electric bus, from the Bolloré brand Bluebus 5SE series, caught fire at the François-Mitterrand metro station, at 121 avenue de France.
This spectacular fire, which had forced the RATP to temporarily withdraw 149 buses from its network, occurred after another similar event.
In early April, a RATP bus, also 100% electric, had indeed caught fire “spontaneously” on Boulevard Saint-Germain, still in Paris.
The line 176 bus burnt Monday in Courbevoie is not an electric device.
It is a diesel-type model like the one that caught fire on June 17 for reasons still undetermined while it was at its terminus, near the Villemomble cemetery (Seine-Saint-Denis).