Wichita Transit electric bus catches fire due to lithium-ion battery

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A Wichita Transit electric bus caught fire early Wednesday due to a lithium-ion battery.

According to the Wichita Fire Department (WFD), they received a call around 1:20 a.m. for the report of a bus on fire at Wichita Transit, 777 E Waterman St.

Upon arrival, the WFD found a smaller electric bus on fire.

“Specifically, the fire involved the battery compartment, the lithium-ion battery compartment of the bus,” said WFD Battalion Chief Lane Pearman.

The fire was contained in the battery compartment on the top of the bus, which includes 10 of them.

“We actually had to cut open the top of the bus to get to the actual battery compartment to allow us to get, to allow the water to actually reach parts that needed to be cooled down,” Pearman said.

Pearman says it took around 90 minutes of continuous water flow from two hose lines to cool the batteries below a point where it would stop the chain reaction that causes these types of fires.

“They are fairly difficult because of that chain reaction that causes those batteries to continuously heat up to the point to where they actually ignite, and there’s only two ways that fire’s going to go out. It either consumes everything it’s going to consume or we provide enough water to reduce the temperature of those batteries below that critical temperature threshold,” Pearman said.

The bus that caught fire is most likely a complete loss, according to Pearman. Other busses received smoke damage.

“There’s probably going to be a substantial amount of loss associated with just the amount of water that was having to be flowed and the smoke that was produced,” Pearman said.

The building is equipped with a fire alarm system and an active sprinkler system, but it failed to activate. Pearman says although it would not have done a lot of good, it is something they are going to look into.

No one was injured.

Pearman said he expects bus routes to run their regular schedule Wednesday.