KENTWOOD, Mich. — Multiple fire crews were on scene of a large fire at the Kelloggsville Public Schools bus garage, which has caused the district to cancel school Friday.
The fire started just after midnight at the bus depot at 240 52nd Street SE in Kentwood, near the Southeast Kelloggsville Elementary School.
Kentwood Fire Chief Brent Looman said the fire began in one of the bus garages. Within 30 minutes he said they had the fire almost completely knocked out. However, they spent a few hours working to put out hot spots.
Putting out the fire required not only the help of the Cutlerville, Wyoming, Grand Rapids and Kentwood fire departments, but also the help of Murrels Towing Company.
"We were kind of attacking the fire from the rear of the buses," said Looman. "We were able to extinguish those fires, Murrells was there pretty quickly and was able to hook up a big tow truck and get those pulled out of there for us."
Looman said getting the buses towed out of the garages was a huge help in getting some of the hotspots put out.
Just before 3:30 a.m., the district announced it is canceling classes at all Kelloggsville Public School buildings Friday.
"I believe these are six of their fleet of 14 buses that are damaged, and they're going to need to look for some renting buses or borrowing buses from other districts next week to continue school," said Looman.
The district confirmed they would be reopening on Monday with help from a neighboring school district to provide transportation.
The cause of the fire is not yet known, Looman said an investigation is underway. However, he said it is not uncommon to have a vehicle fire.
"What we have to do is we got to look at all the vehicles to make sure the vehicles aren't at fault," he said. "And then we start looking at the buildings electrical system and make sure that's not at fault. Make sure there's no, no way anybody broke in and set the fire, that's all going to be ruled out."
Looman said it is too early to consider the fire suspicious or not, he expects the investigation to take a few weeks.
The Kentwood Fire Department said no one was in the garage at the time of the fire and no firefighters were injured in the process of putting it out. However, Looman said the six buses damaged were a total loss before responders even arrived on scene.
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