Posted on 06/06/2025 5:48:22 AM PDT by Red Badger
City health officials say nearby residents should stay indoors as much as possible, wear a mask outside, avoid strenuous physical activity and close windows and doors.
Decommissioned buses were burned during a fire at the SEPTA Midvale Depot in North Philadelphia on June 5, 2025. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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A fast-moving fire erupted early Thursday at a transit bus lot in Philadelphia filled with dozens of decommissioned vehicles, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the sky but causing no injuries. The fire did not impact the morning commute.
Smoke from fires can be dangerous to breathe. City health officials say nearby residents should stay indoors as much as possible, wear a mask outside, avoid strenuous physical activity and close windows and doors to homes.
People who are sensitive to air pollution, including children, older adults, pregnant people and people with heart and lung conditions such as asthma, should take extra precautions. They should seek medical attention if they experience symptoms such as trouble breathing, dizziness or nausea, officials said.
Health Commissioner Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson said there were some toxic fumes emitted from the fire. “That is why my recommendation as health commissioner is for residents to stay away from the area of the fire. And folks who are in that area to stay inside, keep your windows and doors shut, close the vents to your home,” she said.
The fire at the SEPTA facility apparently started sometime before 6:15 a.m., said Andrew Busch, SEPTA’s director of communications. Several buses were soon engulfed in flames, and the fire burned for nearly two hours before it was declared under control.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
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Yes, 15 of the 40 buses damaged in the fire at the SEPTA Midvale depot in Philadelphia were electric. These buses were decommissioned and were in the process of being sold or scrapped. The electric buses were manufactured by Proterra and had not been in operation for several years.
Philly is becoming a “Chocolate City” that doesn’t flood.
“The electric buses were manufactured by Proterra and had not been in operation for several years.”
SERIOUSLY! They really thought they could leave electric buses outside and not have them go up? TOO DAMN FUNNY. If nothing else, their batteries would have discharged, which, for Lithium Ions, is NOT a good thing.
(but no doubt our resident Greenie will have something to say in defense of them)
No longer the ‘Cream Cheese City’?........................
Like the ship burning in Alaska, the EV vehicles are not as climate friendly as advertised.
And "The fire included 15 electric buses which had been decommissioned, which SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said could provide a clue to how the fire started. A similar electric bus caught fire in 2022 at a separate SEPTA facility."
How long was Proterra sucking at the federal teat? A LONG time...
my first guess was that inoperable EV busses caused that fire ...
“wear a mask outside”
might as well wrap a hankie around your face or just wear an amulet: drug store masks are incapable of filtering out fine particulate matter from smoke ... one pretty much needs something like a 3M industrial respirator mask with P100 filters ...
So, North Philadelphia, hmm? And the cause is unknown? Hmmm.
It is now state budget month in Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. One of the key points of contention is how large the increases in the huge state subsidies received by SEPTA (owner of the burning buses) will be. Among Governor Shapiro’s budget demands for the coming year are significant increases in the shift of transportation funding to SEPTA. So the “bus bonfire” very neatly helps to call attention to SEPTA’s need for additional funding. As this involves Philadelphia and politics, it is hardly surprising that the political appointees running SEPTA saw fit to stack their surplus buses like cordwood to “economize” on storage space. And now they are the “victims” of this unfortunate “accident” that sees millions in hardware going up in flames. This sad event will be used by the Democrats lawmakers from southeastern Pennsylvania to call attention to just how desperately SEPTA needs new taxpayer support. The gigantic funding increase in question will come from liquid fuels tax revenue paid by every driver of fossil fuel vehicles in the state and one of the only sources of funding for road building and improvements. Meanwhile, the state’s road and bridge infrastructure is continually disintegrating. Shapiro is from southeastern PA, and has a reputation for never seeing a tax dollar that didn’t need to be spent… preferably in the Philly area.
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