i almost died the other day. literally. i was in a bus to New York from Boston that caught on fire, in the highway en route to New York. the whole bus burned down to ashes within 30 min. everybody on the buy got off ok--miraculously! apparently there was a fire started by the overheating of the air conditioning system (ironic!?) and which therefore spread. i do not know why we did not all die, but i am glad we didn't. in thinking back, anything could have happened. the bus could have exploded after the fuel tank was sparked by a flame. that didn't happen. we could have all been trapped inside while the fire blazed on outside. didn't happen either. so it's really great fortune and blessing that we got out of it okay.
below are some stories from the Boston Globe that covered the story. the first one, actually quotes me in it :-)
unbelievable!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/18/passengers_say_bus_firm_unresponsive/
Passengers say bus firm unresponsive
Fire, delays left many in difficulty
By Lisa Fleisher and Mac Daniel, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff | August 18, 2005
Already traumatized after the Fung Wah bus carrying them had caught fire en route to New York from Boston Tuesday, irate passengers said yesterday the company ignored their pleas for medical help and insurance claims once they arrived in New York.
When the bus finally arrived at Fung Wah offices on Canal Street in Manhattan late Tuesday, passengers said, the lights in the tiny office were turned off and women working the ticket counter told them to come back the next day.
Angry passengers did not budge, however, and staged a mini-protest that did not end until a New York police officer ran the license plate of the bus and gave passengers the company's insurer.
''The insult may be far worse than the injury in this case," said Mark Holliday, 37, of Belmont, who was on the bus with his brother and sister-in-law.
The blaze, which occurred on Interstate 91 in Meriden, Conn., at about 2 p.m., was the second time in five months that a bus going from Chinatown to Chinatown had caught fire. In March, a bus operated by Travel Pack, a company that also offers $15 rides between Boston and New York, was destroyed by fire near the Allston-Brighton tollbooths on the Massachusetts Turnpike. No one was hurt in either fire.
''They're not very cooperative," said Dumisani Nyoni, 24, who went to New York Tuesday to visit friends and took a Fung Wah bus back to Boston yesterday. ''The New York people wouldn't do anything with us. They said to contact the Boston office. When I got to Boston, they weren't very cooperative at all."
Yesterday, Fung Wah officials said passengers should contact the Boston office for information on how to file insurance claims.
''Obviously it was a terrible incident," Fung Wah lawyer Lawrence R. Kulig said. ''Fung Wah will take efforts to determine to customers what losses they may have suffered, and will act responsibly about compensating them."
Mona Louis, a Fung Wah spokeswoman, said the company's owner, Pei Lin Liang, had traveled to Connecticut to deal with the bus that had caught fire, leaving only one ticket seller to handle the crowd of passengers in New York. The worker was instructed to take passengers' contact information so the company could reach them at a later date, but ''the people wouldn't cooperate," Louis said.
In response to the blaze, Paul Alfonso, head of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, said Fung Wah and Lucky Star, another low-fare bus operator out of South Station, would be subject to surprise inspections three times a month. Currently, the buses are inspected once a month.
Several passengers interviewed yesterday said the bus driver offered no help immediately after the accident, apologizing for the fire but doing little else.
After a local school bus took them to Wallingford, Conn., passengers said they waited two hours for another Fung Wah bus to take them to New York.
Once they arrived at Fung Wah's New York location, ''we went up and knocked on the door, and there were clearly people in there, and they just shook their heads no," Holliday said.
New York police officers, responding to a passenger's phone call, demanded that Fung Wah officials provide insurance information to passengers. At one point, bus officials provided a phone number for an insurer that turned out to be disconnected.
Finally, the officers ran the bus's license plate and distributed the insurer's name and telephone number to passengers.
Meriden fire officials said they have not yet completed their investigation of the blaze.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/17/riders_flee_bus_fire_on_nyc_run/
Riders flee bus fire on NYC run
Vehicle was part of Fung Wah fleet
By Mac Daniel and Lisa Fleisher, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | August 17, 2005
A Fung Wah bus, part of the low-fare passenger line fleet from Boston to New York, erupted in flames on an interstate highway in Connecticut yesterday, sending frightened passengers scrambling off the bus just moments before it became a ''charred mess," police and passengers said.
The driver of the New York-bound bus carrying about 45 passengers noticed smoke streaming from the rear left wheel at about 2 p.m., then pulled over to inspect the vehicle, passengers said. The confused passengers fled the bus just before flames shot 50 feet in the air and engulfed it.
''A minute later, we could have all been dead," a passenger, Lisa Holliday, 25, said by by cellphone while standing on Interstate 91 in Meriden, Conn., near the bus's smoking remains.
''I'm looking at the back of the bus where we were sitting, and it's not even there anymore," Holliday said.
John Quackenbush, 38, a freelance film technician from Cambridge, took out a digital camera and documented the fire.
''It's torched," he said. ''Every seat is burned. All the little TVs are cracked and melted. It's amazing."
It was the second time in five months that a low-fare Chinatown bus has caught fire. On March 18, flames destroyed a New York-to-Boston bus owned by Travel Pack, a Fung Wah competitor, near the Allston-Brighton tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike. No one was injured in either fire.
Although the Fung Wah company has a ''satisfactory" rating, the highest given, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency cited the company in 2004 for failing to do random drug and alcohol tests of employees, as well as for allowing a driver to work more than 70 hours in eight days. The citations resulted in more than $17,000 in fines, agency records show.
The Boston-based company is also being sued by Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly for discriminating against disabled people after it refused to allow a service animal to board a bus.
The so-called Chinatown-to-Chinatown bus services have become a popular alternative to trains, planes, and other, more expensive bus companies, such as Peter Pan and Greyhound. One- way fares are $15, up from $5 and $10 just a few years ago, compared with about $35 for a one-way Greyhound fare to New York. Critics have questioned whether more oversight of the newer companies might be needed.
Fung Wah officials did not return repeated telephone calls to the company's Boston and New York offices and to their lawyers yesterday.
Passengers said the driver, who was not identified, pulled over about 45 seconds after noticing smoke and went outside to inspect the situation. He then came back onto the coach bus, which was carrying about 45 passengers and motioned for them to evacuate. Many, however, did not see him motioning, leaving it to passengers to spread the message among themselves, down to the back of the bus.
Several riders said they were upset that there had not been a more official or clearer announcement about the evacuation.
''I finally just started saying, 'Move, move, move! Go! Get the heck out of this bus!' " Holliday said. ''Things can be replaced, but people can't."
The state Department of Telecommunications and Energy, which inspects commercial bus fleets, said the bus involved in yesterday's fire had passed a state inspection on Oct. 22, 2004. Only minor defects were found on the vehicle, including a fire extinguisher that needed to be properly secured and a passenger door that needed adjustment, said the department's executive director, Timothy Shevlin.
After Shevlin was questioned yesterday by a reporter about the bus's air conditioning system, he said he had asked Fung Wah officials whether the fire may have started there. Company officials had told him that the system had been serviced the day before, he said, but that they were unsure what started the fire.
Meriden fire officials will conduct an investigation into the cause of the fire, and state and federal officials may also review it.
Last year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration formed a task force to look into ''Northeast inter-urban bus companies," including Fung Wah and Travel Pack, after they received reports of safety concerns, said James Lewis, a spokesman for the federal safety administration. Though there were some violations, Lewis said, company officials have generally been very cooperative in responding to them.
''This is a sector of the industry that has caught our attention, has maintained our attention," Lewis said.
The fire closed the southbound lanes of I-91, and traffic was backed up until 5 p.m., said Assistant Chief Mark Graber of the Meriden Fire Department. Passengers said they were shuttled to a garage in Wallingford, Conn., where they waited about three hours for another Fung Wah bus to complete the trip to New York.
The bus line caters mostly to the young or thrifty, who often don't care which company they travel with.
Yesterday, while waiting at South Station for the 5 p.m. bus to New York, passengers put down books or took a break from headphones and said they were surprised by news of the fire, but nobody headed for a refund.
''If I was rich, I'd go by the train, but $150, $130, for a student? You can't top this, $15 to New York," said Yan Perchuk, a 28-year-old student at the Berklee College of Music who has ridden at least 15 times. ''That could happen on any bus."
Quackenbush, who uses the bus to commute between work locations, said this will not deter him from taking the bus again. In fact, it will have just the opposite effect, he said.
''What are the odds of this happening again?" he said. ''Now I'm safe."
Globe correspondent Adam Jadhav contributed to this report.Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com; Lisa Fleisher at lfleisher@globe.com.
SEE ALSO --
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/17/low_fare_buses_to_face_additional_inspections/
Low-fare buses to face additional inspections
By Juliette Wallack, Associated Press Writer | August 17, 2005
BOSTON --Low-fare bus operators that run between Boston and New York will be subject to additional surprise inspections after the second fire on one of the buses in five months, a state regulator said Wednesday.
A Fung Wah Bus Transportation bus caught fire Tuesday in Meriden, Conn. All 45 passengers were evacuated moments before flames engulfed the bus. In March, a bus run by low-fare operator Travel Pack caught fire on the Massachusetts Turnpike. No one was injured in either fire.
The low-fare Chinatown-to-Chinatown buses, which offer one-way tickets for $15, have become a popular alternative to trains and more expensive bus lines. They run between New York's Chinatown and Boston's South Station.
"Now we have a second incident," said Paul Afonso, chairman of the Department of Telecommunications and Energy, which regulates the commercial buses. "I'm not going to wait for a third incident."
Travel Pack no longer operates a Boston-New York route, a company employee said.
Fung Wah and Lucky Star, the operators with buses currently departing from South Station, will be subject to surprise inspections three times a month, Afonso said. Previously, officials inspected the companies once a month.
State police officers also will be watching the buses more carefully for such things as speeding violations, he said.
Afonso said state investigators also will review safety guidelines with Fung Wah's drivers and owners after Tuesday's incident.
Fung Wah is prepared for more inspections, said company representative Mona Louis. She said an inspection after the Travel Pack fire didn't show any problems with Fung Wah's buses.
"We are OK," she said.
Lucky Star vice president Jason Chung said his employees check the buses every day, so he's not worried about additional inspections, either.
"We pass every month," Chung said. "I'm concerned about safety for our passengers and my own vehicles."
Fung Wah currently has a "satisfactory" rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the highest rating given. But in 2004, it was fined more than $17,000 for failing to randomly test drivers for drugs and alcohol and for allowing a driver to drive after 70 hours of duty in eight days.
Lucky Star, which began operating in May, is not rated.
Travel Pack has a "conditional" rating and had to pay more than $9,000 in fines for violations this year.
"They had enough violations that we felt we had to downgrade their safety rating," said James Lewis, a spokesman for the FMCSA, citing the number of Travel Pack drivers pulled out of service for violating safety protocols and the number of speeding tickets issued.
"What you can say is that the data reflects a relatively safe fleet of vehicles, that the bulk of their violations have been relating to drivers, not to vehicles," Lewis said of the low-fare bus lines.
Officials said the companies have cooperated in recent months to make sure their buses and drivers conform to regulations. Before 2003, the relatively new low-fare operators weren't getting regular inspections, largely because they didn't realize they needed to be licensed to carry passengers, Lewis said.
The renewed safety concerns didn't deter passengers. On Wednesday, tickets for the 2 p.m. Fung Wah Boston-to-New York route were selling briskly, and a line of people waited to climb on the bus.
Nichole Porter, 34, had ridden the bus for the first time on Tuesday from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Boston to visit a friend. On Wednesday, she was waiting for her return trip.
"It was OK," Porter said, particularly for the $30 round-trip price. "Things happen. You can have a fire on the Greyhound, also."
 
