Twin Cedars Bus Barn Destroyed By Fire

This school van is the one that was being worked on when the bus barn of Twin Cedars caught fire Sunday afternoon

Bussey, Iowa – The quiet of a Sunday afternoon was broken by a fire alarm that rang out at the Twin Cedars Bus Barn.

Don Haines, Assistant Fire Chief for Bussey, said that a school employee was working on a Twin Cedars school van and was removing the gas tank when, “He spewed gas out of it and it caused an ignition that caught the building on fire.”

A school car was also in the building, but was driven to a safe place along side the building after the fire had started.

Haines said the employee managed to get out OK, “He was looked at in the ambulance and refused treatment.”

“The building is a total loss; everything in it’s a total loss”, was how Haines described the damage.

As of 4:30 pm, the fire department was doing some cleanup of the scene to prevent anything, such as fuel or other fluid, from escaping the scene. The school was moving the buses to the school grounds so they could be plugged in overnight because of the cold temperatures that are expected.

Knoxville, Clay Township, Lovilla and Eddyville fire departments all assisted on the scene, while Marion County Sheriff’s Department blocked traffic, for some time, along Highway 156 so that crews could extinguish the flames.

The one problem that might possibly impact school for tomorrow is that the water main to the school was broken during the fire, so water is currently shut off to the school. Haines said a repair crew is going to be there soon to attempt the repair.