Fire destroys 35 buses at depot in Cornwall
A huge fire has destroyed 35 buses in Cornwall - a third of the Western Greyhound company's entire fleet.
The blaze broke out at 1am on Monday morning at Summercourt near Newquay. No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire has not yet been identified.
Amongst the wreckage were two brand new vehicles costing more than £100,000, as well as four of Truro's six park-and-ride buses.
The fire is thought to have caused around £1.5 million in damage, and the flames reportedly reached 50ft, with firefighters using water from a neighbour's pool to help fight it.
Mark Howarth from Western Greyhound told the BBC: "A lot of hard work has gone into Western Greyhound and it's awful to see it going up in smoke."
One neighbour described the fire as "terrifying", and it reportedly took more than 60 firefighters to put out the flames.
Incident Commander Guy Herrington, from Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service, told the BBC: "Because of the flammable liquids and materials in the buses, the fire took hold very quickly."
He added that although fire spreads quickly through vehicles, tackling such a large volume in one go was "rare".
Western Greyhound has been operating in Devon and Cornwall since 1998. While services in Cornwall have been affected, everything is running smoothly in Devon.
A police spokesman told the Daily Mail: "A large number of buses have been destroyed by fire which will impact on the bus service provided in mid-Cornwall. The cause of the fire has not yet been established."
Devon and Cornwall Police and the Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service are both working to find out what started the blaze.
Back in January, rats were blamed for a huge fire that destroyed three coaches and three minibuses at a coach company operations centre in Southampton.
According to the Daily Mail, fire investigators concluded that the most likely cause was a spark from an electrical fault caused by rats chewing through the wires.
The fire destroyed six out of the 11 vehicles on the Barfoot and Sons, and residents said they saw 40ft flames after hearing an "explosion".
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