Riders flee bus fire on NYC run

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.