Driver, 5 Children Safe After Electric School Bus Catches Fire in Montreal

A bus driver and five children managed to escape after a electric school bus caught fire in Montreal, officials say.

The incident happened in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, where fire crews were called to just before 8 a.m. on Sept. 9, Montreal fire department chief Martin Guilbault told The Epoch Times.

Guilbault confirmed the bus was electric, but said the fire was not caused by the vehicle’s batteries. The bus was made by electric vehicle manufacturer LION, formerly Lion Electric.

“The fire didn’t affect the batteries, and the batteries were not the cause of that fire,” Guilbault said.

Guilbault noted the children on board were “evacuated really rapidly” by the driver, and sheltered in a nearby building.

He said the fire was extinguished in about an hour.

A spokesperson for the province’s largest school service centre confirmed the bus was transporting five children attending one of its schools, and that the driver was able to safely get them off the bus.

“As soon as he noticed an unusual odour, the driver quickly stopped the vehicle and evacuated the students,” Centre de services scolaire de Montréal spokesperson Alain Perron told The Epoch Times in an email.

Another vehicle arrived to pick the students up, Perron said.

Perron said parents had been informed of the situation and the centre is working with the bus company to determine the cause of the fire.

“In accordance with our contracts, the bus company’s vehicles are subject to strict mechanical inspection requirements, and they are recent. We remain in close communication with the bus company to determine the cause of the incident,” Perron said.

Guilbault said the fire department will not be investigating the cause of the fire as there was no criminal involvement.

“We don’t do investigations on these kinds of fire because there’s no criminal possibilities, and it didn’t affect any building at all,” he said.

Bus manufacturer Lion Electric went into creditor protection in December after struggling financially and failing to secure new funding from the Quebec government.

In February, shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company,  alleging it misled investors and misrepresented its financial position. The lawsuit includes those who invested in the company between May 7, 2021, and Dec. 15, 2024.

The lawsuit names directors, officers, auditors, and underwriters of the company. It alleges that when Lion Electric went public, its bosses presented a positive outlook on its profitability and productivity. In the filing, former employees said the vehicles manufactured were defective and did not meet customer expectations.

The allegations in the class action have not been tested in court.

The Epoch Times attempted to contact the company for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

The Canadian Press contributed to this article.