A Monday morning fire severely damaged the Powell school district’s bus barn and several buses. No one was injured in the blaze, said Jay Curtis, superintendent of Park County School District No. 1.
“All things considered, it could have been worse,” he said. “The bus barn obviously received extensive damage and several buses were lost, but human life was not, and that’s the important thing.”
No staff members were in the building when the fire broke out, and the cause of the fire remains unclear.
“Preliminarily, we think it actually started in one of the buses,” Curtis said Monday. “We’re not sure how … I just don’t want to speculate at all, but that’s what it seems.”
The superintendent praised the quick response of the Powell Volunteer Fire Department and firefighters’ work at the scene.
“I was so incredibly and beyond impressed with the Powell Fire Department,” Curtis said. “This could have been so much worse if they weren’t as good as they are.”
Firemen arrived on scene within just minutes, as the fire station is located nearby.
“As the fire was rolling, some guys were just getting vehicles out of the barn to save them, so it was quite a spectacle,” Curtis said.
Firemen got buses out of the barn — including driving one through a garage door — and all of the district’s vehicles.
“They did an amazing job,” Curtis said.
Initially, it appears five buses were seriously damaged in the fire, and a few more received heat damage from being close to the flames, Curtis said, but all those details are preliminary “until they get in there.”
The bay fits eight buses, and only four or five were in there at the time, he said.
As for how the Powell-based district will transport students in the fire’s aftermath, “our neighbors from Cody and Lovell have already pledged a few spare buses for us to use while we're getting things worked out, so thanks to those school districts,” he said.
When the fire started, Transportation Supervisor Stephen Janes and mechanic Justin MaGill were taking some buses up to Billings for repairs. They turned around immediately and came back to Powell when they heard about the fire.
Christy Schwartz, administrative assistant for the transportation department, was out transporting a student when the fire started. She also returned to the bus barn, and other staff members on scene included Support Services Coordinator Rob McCray.
The bus barn had undergone improvements over the past year, including a new paint job. Monday’s fire came during an already difficult year, as Powell schools and those around the country are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and all the challenges it brings.
“The blows keep coming in 2020,” Curtis said.
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BREAKING: Bus barn burns, no one injured - Powell Tribune
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