Bus fire causes evacuation at Kamppi terminals on Monday night

Operations back to normal by Tuesday morning

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Central Helsinki’s Kamppi bus terminal and the entire adjacent Kamppi Center shopping mall were closed for an hour and a half on Monday evening because of a bus fire in the terminal.
      The engine of a bus belonging to the Westendin Linja company that was standing at one of the Espoo terminal bays caught fire after 18:30 in the evening. In addition to the driver there were ten passengers inside the bus that was preparing to travel to Latokaski.
     
When the driver noticed the fire he quickly evacuated the passengers from the vehicle and tried to extinguish the flames, explained Head of Information Systems Kimmo Sinisalo of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV).
      No one was hurt in the incident, but the burning vehicle managed to produce a lot of smoke.
     
Espoo resident Leena Pettersson was waiting for the Saunalahti bus in the Espoo terminal just after 18:30. She noticed through the glass doors how thick white smoke started coming out of the bus at the next platform.
      “The smoke looked like exhaust fumes. Then the announcement came that everyone should leave through the emergency exits. Only no-one said where those exits were”, Pettersson explained.
     
On the Narinkkatori Square outside, people enquired about entry to the Espoo terminal, the Metro station, and the long-distance bus traffic terminal but the guards and the police remained silent.
      At 19:15 the firemen and the police started urging people to move further away. A fire truck was on its way to the scene carrying a large fan.
      The fire was extinguished fairly quickly. “However, a bus fire that happens indoors is always threatening”, emphasised fire-chief-on-duty Juha Lindholm.
      “In the bus terminal area the visibility was down to about a metre. Had the fire continued for another fifteen minutes, it would have posed a significantly greater threat.”
     
Afterwards Westendin Linja administrative director Lauri Rinta-Kanto and his repair shop chief examined the bus.
      “The fire looks to have been caused by a short-circuited electrical cable on top of the engine”, Rinta-Kanto established. “Some fuel had also burned. Fortunately the fire was limited mainly to some plastic parts around the cable and did not spread to the interior of the bus.”
      The Espoo bus terminal reopened at 20:15 and by 21:00 its operations were back to normal.
      According to Kimmo Sinisalo the fire will not affect the Tuesday morning traffic. “In Kamppi there may still be a faint smell of smoke and some soot on the floor.”


Links:
  Kamppi Center (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat