Driver and coach got students off burning bus on freeway in Irvine

A school bus filled with high school students caught fire in Irvine during the drive back from a water polo match Wednesday evening, officials said.

Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Stephen Horner said the bus was going north on the 5 Freeway near Jeffrey Road when the driver noticed it was starting to lose power. He said one of the 36 Foothill High School athletes aboard told his coach that he smelled smoke.

The driver pulled over and asked the students to evacuate the bus, which was returning from a match at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo, Horner said.

“They went to the shoulder, and the back end of the bus was heavily covered in smoke and fire,” Horner said.

Derrick Lozano, a junior varsity water polo coach at Foothill High, made sure students got off the bus safely and began texting parents to let them know what was happening, said Mark Eliot, director of communications and public information for the Tustin Unified School District.

No one was injured in the incident, authorities said.

“We applaud the coach for his quick thinking getting the players off the bus,” Eliot said. “We’re just glad everyone got off the bus safely.”

Fire authorities received the call at 6:33 p.m. The Irvine Police Department and California Highway Patrol also responded to the scene.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, but Horner said the vehicle’s “check engine” light turned on.

The Tustin Unified School District contracts its transportation service to First Student, a Santa Ana-based bus company. All of First Student’s buses are less than 10 years old and are inspected annually by the Highway Patrol, Eliot said. The buses also undergo maintenance inspections every 45 days or 3,000 miles, he said.

It is not clear when an inspection on the bus that caught fire was last performed.

Eliot said the situation is “extremely rare” but that the district will conduct a review of the bus service in an attempt to prevent a similar incident.

“Student safety is our top priority,” he said.

Parvini writes for the Los Angeles Times. Daily Pilot staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

[For the record, Sept. 11, 12:44 p.m.: An earlier version of this post misspelled the name of Derrick Lozano, a junior varsity water polo coach at Foothill High.]