Burnt out bus on forest hill road.

[henryb]

There is a burnt out double decker bus on Forest Hill Rd by Brenchley Gardens. The Police and Fire Services are there. The road is blocked and traffic diverted up Dunstans. Anyone know what happened? Looks like a pretty bad fire.

[muffins78]

I saw it this morning. I believe from bbc news it was not in service, and there's a video of it. Hopefully the driver is okay.

[nunhead_man]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31998937

[dbboy]

It started about 9.15am with clouds of black acrid smoke to the extent from further up the hill the whole area was engulfed in a black smoke and for a number of minutes I couldn't even see the junction or houses at the bottom of Canonbie. The wind was blowing the smoke up Forest Hill Road and Canonbie. There were two distinct explosions and it was pretty damn scary as the clouds went black. Almost resembling the aftermath of a large amount of aero fuel burning (it was in fact due to the diesel fuel erupting, exploding and burning). For those opposite it, and in the first few houses in Canonbie it must have been even more scary. Is the worst fire I've seen and not something I'd ever like to see again.

[dimples]

Really scary , thank god it wasn't in use !

[JohnL]

Hopefully it would have taken a while to take hold.

and any passengers would be out fast.

[Otta]

Bloody hell, you don't see that every day! (thankfully)

[Cyclemonkey]

Ahh that has solved the mystery of the smoke and horrible burning smell on Saturday morning that we got in our flat over on Taymount Rise. It was driving me mad for about an hour as i couldn't see any obvious source.

[peckhambog]

A 242 caught fire on Cheapside late on 12th March. I spoke to the bus area supervisor who turned up and he told me generally they have one a year.

Mechanical breakage in one of the seven belts in engine compartment at rear; if the damaged part doesn't fall clear but fouls/damages other moving parts there is a rapid heat build up.

[Lowlander]

It reminds me of a series of articles in The Register (a decade ago now!) after a coincidental spate of them:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/14/fire_breathing_buses_reattack/

[henryb]

I wonder if the new buses will have the same fault. Imagine if it was full.

[JohnL]

Lowlander Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It reminds me of a series of articles in The

> Register (a decade ago now!) after a coincidental

> spate of them:

>

> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/14/fire_breat

> hing_buses_reattack/

Good news is that if you get stuck in New Cross - the

New Cross House is quite nice.

[Guest]

I wouldn't have liked to have been in the driver's shoes.