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Bus blaze could be arson
By Ian Proctor
A fire which consumed the top deck of a busy bus could have been started by a passenger, police have said.
Flames poured out the window of the double decker bus after it caught fire on a busy road in South Harrow on Sunday (18).
The top deck of the H12 Stanmore to South Harrow service, heading towards Pinner, burst into flames as the driver pulled up to a bus stop in Alexandra Avenue, junction with Warden Avenue, between 1pm and 2pm.
The bus was half-full but all the passengers were evacuated safely and no-one was injured.
Police closed off the road between High Worple and Warden Avenue until 5.45pm.
Mohanasundaram Selladurai, director of Goran Gates estate agents, captured dramatic pictures of firefighters battling the blaze.
He said: "The driver stopped at a bus stop and somebody told him there was smoke coming out of a window and a small fire had started.
"The driver tried to put it out with his fire extinguisher but he couldn't. Within five minutes the fire brigade and police came."
Police are now examining CCTV footage from the bus and believe the fire was started on the top deck.
The H12 is run by Metroline, whose headquarters are in College Road, Harrow.
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I thought Boris was elected to scrap the bendy bus because they were so "dangerous" and replace it with "safer" non-existent Routemaster buses.
Now we've had a fire and branch based accident in the last week we can that this was about politics and not real safety issues.
Boris is very quiet about this now isn't he.
well if you read the article properly it does say that it was believed to have been started by a passenger and has nothing to do with the safety of the vehicle itself. im a london firefighter myself and i have seen many vehicle fires. just because this one has caught fire does not mean that they are all unsafe.