WHITEFISH — The company that owns the bus that caught on fire in Ronan over the weekend held a meeting Tuesday for Whitefish students and parents who were affected by the blaze.
“And, for me, I was just kind of shocked," said Iona Sarraille, a member of the Whitefish Speech and debate team. "Like, I can't believe this is real. I can't believe I'm just like, actually watching our bus go up into flames."
Whitefish Speech and Debate students watched their bus catch on fire at a tournament in Ronan on Saturday. Students were on the bus a short time before it caught fire putting their stuff away and noticed something was not right.
“When we were putting our stuff on the bus, we kind of all acknowledged that it smelled weird, like it smelled like burning plastic,” Sarraille said.
But no students were on board when the fire first started. The driver was injured but has since been released from the hospital.
Following this incident, Rocky Mountain Transportation, who owns the bus, held a meeting for parents and students.
“We want the kids comfortable, we want the kids safe," said Seth Soley, the owner of Rocky Mountain Transportation. "I would have never sent children in that bus if it was unsafe. With all the services that were stacked up on that thing and it wasn't just Rocky Mountains mechanics that looked at that thing, it was other professional, certified mechanics who went to school for just that."
Rocky Mountain Transportation has a standard procedure that all buses are inspected every 30 days, and any major issues are serviced by certified bus mechanics off-site. But even with these procedures, incidents still happen.
“These are still mechanical beasts," Soley said. "I can't promise that it's going to go there back and not have a single issue. I mean, they have wheels and an engine, things happen."
Rocky Mountain will be replacing all items lost or damaged in the fire through its insurance. But for the debate team, students lost more than just physical items.
“I mean it took those people, like, hours and hours and hours to first of all, find all that evidence, and then it takes them hours and hours and hours to like, organize it together," Iona Sarraille said. "And that's just so much time spent into that. It's just kind of sad to like, see all your work kind of just burn."
The Speech and Debate team is moving forward after the incident and is now closer than ever.
“We're really happy that everybody's okay, and I think that it's kind of like, helped the team kind of come together," Sarraille said. "This happened to all of us, as a collective. So I think that it's kind of helped us, like, bond together."
The cause of the bus fire is still under investigation by a master mechanic in Missoula. We will continue to follow this story as it develops.
