Fire at Western Greyhound
It wont have escaped your attention that Western Greyhound suffered a massive setback to their business in the early hours of yesterday morning with a large fire at the main Summercourt base which has destroyed 37 buses – a third of the whole fleet.
At 0105 this morning Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service received a call to a fire in a bus depot. On arrival crews found there to be 9 buses involved and a diesel tank in the vicinity.
At 02:37 hrs assistance for 'Make Pumps 8' was made, further appliances from Truro and Mevagissey were mobilised. The incident has been sectorised into two areas and currently five main jets, one hose reel jet are being supplied by one hydrant and an open water source. Along side the major appliances two landrovers attended and specialised equipment - Command Support Vehicle from Launceston, an Operational Support Vehicle from St Austell, and Water carrier from Wadebridge and a welfare wagon from St Dennis.
Once the fire was confirmed out it was established that a total of 37 Buses had been involved in the fire at Summercourt. This morning Cornwall Fire and Rescue service will be carrying out a fire investigation along with Police Scenes of Crimes officers to try to establish the cause of the fire.
https://db.cornwall.gov.uk/fbnews/info/details.asp?ID=18945
As for the vehicles lost it seems a large number of the double decker fleet have been lost including some of the Enviro 400s along with some of the Mercedes Citaros used on Truro Park & Ride duties. Several Optare Solos have also been lost including, it seems, two brand new ones which had yet to enter service. One bus which has been confirmed as lost is the heritage fleet Bristol VRT JVW259W pictured below way back in 2008.
A particularly kind gesture comes from First Devon & Cornwall who posted this message on their Facebook pages.
Due to the terrible incident at the Western Greyhound depot, First will be accepting WG season tickets for travel on our services for the next few days to enable passengers to travel by bus in the county. We have only just announced this and are in the process of communicating it to our drivers across Cornwall (therefore please be patient with any drivers who may not yet be aware). Further updates on how long this arrangement will be in place will follow in the next day or so.
First will be temporarily accepting Western Greyhound seasons from our passengers having difficulty in getting to their destination at no extra charge. We would like to thank First for their kind offer to assist.
We would like to pay tribute to the fire crews who tackled the enormous blaze at our Summercourt base this morning. They acted with great professionalism and saved the offices and workshops from being destroyed as well as saving some of the buses. I would also like to thank all our staff that, despite their shock and stunned disbelief at what had happened, worked to do everything they could to keep the wheels turning under the most difficult circumstances. They are all true stars! Well done! Thank you also to our customers who are currently facing inconvenience, we are all working long hours to try and get everything back up and running normally as quickly as the situation allows.
We wish Western Greyhound all the best at this difficult time as they try and rebuild the company.
