By Fran Jeffries
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — 20 Henry County students evacuated; no injuries reported. ‘The whole bus was engulfed,’ resident says.
The first day of the new school year in Henry County began Monday morning with a bus catching on fire.
No injuries were reported.
Officials said about 20 students were on the bus when it caught fire on Mitchell’s Ridge Drive near Ellenwood.
The students were evacuated from the bus, and the blaze was extinguished, fire officials said.
Roselyn Antwi, who lives on Mitchell’s Ridge Drive near the scene, said she woke up to the sound of “girls talking and boys laughing.”
“I looked out my window and noticed there was a bus on fire, and kids were standing outside the bus watching it burn,” Antwi said.
She said she asked the children to move farther away from the fire and allowed some of the girls to come inside her home to call their parents.
“The whole bus was engulfed,” Antwi said. “It was covered in smoke.”
An investigator was at the scene trying to determine the cause of the fire, said Capt. Sabrina Puckett, a Henry County Fire Department spokeswoman.
The students were headed to Stockbridge High School and Austin Road Middle School, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Copyright 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution