The bus explosion was so loud it triggered an alarm inside a nearby building yesterday.

“We heard a loud bang — I would say it sounded like an explosion,” Warwick Post Office employee Pandora Woolridge said.

The post office stands just steps from where the school bus ultimately stopped.

“We all stopped for a split second, and then the alarm went off, so we ran to the front here to see what was going on.”

According to Ms Woolridge, children had started to get off the bus, and the driver was “calling in” the incident.

Flames were visible under the back of the bus, she said.

“We didn’t know if it was going to explode or what it was going to do, but we wanted the children away from the bus,” Ms Woolridge said. “So we all went over and brought the children over here and got them inside to call their parents and let them know what was going on.”

None of the children were crying, she said. “But, inside, you don’t know what they were feeling,” Ms Woolridge said. “They were probably scared once they started seeing the flames.”

The area quickly filled up with heavy smoke and the smell of burnt rubber.

“It was nasty,” she said. “There were a few people over the hill that said they could smell it.”

With the flames rising high around the bus, the decision was made to move the children out of the post office and to a nearby bus shelter.

Another woman who works in the area, who requested that The Royal Gazette not use her name, said she went over to check on the children at the bus shelter.

“I asked them how they were feeling, and one little boy said he was afraid,” the woman said. “He was younger — he was probably about 10.”

She said bystanders stepped in to help with this situation as they waited for emergency personnel to arrive. “There were people, civilians, directing traffic until the police came,” she said.

“I noticed that the traffic was starting to pile up, so I decided to go out there and direct the traffic away from it,” Warwick post office employee Karl Roberts said.

Mr Roberts said he continued to direct traffic as firefighters arrived from both the east and west.

People making the morning commute asked him what was happening as he rerouted them, he said.

“They were very surprised and worried,” Mr Roberts said. “Some of them were asking ‘did anyone get hurt?’”

According to Ms Woolridge, firefighters were on scene approximately 20 minutes after a call reporting the fire was made.

Troy Brimmer, lieutenant with the Bermuda Fire Services, said crews arrived to find the bus “fully involved from the rear axle towards the rear” of the vehicle.

According to Mr Brimmer, it took firefighters approximately 30 to 45 minutes to get the blaze under control.

“It flared up several times,” the lieutenant said.

A mixture of water and a foam concentrate was used to help extinguish the fire on board the fibreglass bus.

Mr Brimmer said it was still too early to determine the cause of the fire.

The woman who works in the area said incidents involving buses were not uncommon. “They need to check the buses regularly,” she said. “The buses are in bad condition.”

Ms Woolridge said firefighters deserved credit for their quick response and work subduing the fire. “They did a fabulous job,” she said.

“We want them here right away, but they can’t do it,” she said of the morning traffic congestion in the area.

The important thing, she said, is that no one was injured as a result.

“The children — although they may be shook up — there were no injuries to any of them.”