Hilliard City Schools train bus drivers on how to handle a bus fire

HILLIARD, Ohio (WCMH) — The first day of school is just days away for Hilliard students.

Friday, school bus drivers with Hilliard City Schools participated in a hands-on training to prepare them for the unimaginable: a bus fire. The training's goal was to get them to feel what it would be like and how to keep calm in a chaotic situation.

“So we're going to give them, you know, as realistic as we can with a generated smoke machine and have them evacuate," said Battalion Chief Heith Good with the Norwich Township Fire Department. "So we'll see how it's done.”

They did the training on a real school bus. The hope is the drivers will never have to use this training, but Good said it is better to be prepared in an emergency.

“Hopefully today we don't instill chaos," said Good. "We want to instill calmness today because this is a practice drill. We want them to come back. If this would happen in a live event, we want them to come back to their training and hopefully that it's a calm thing and we can in orderly fashion get these kids off the bus in a safe manner.”

Each driver steps onto the bus, takes a seat and then the smoke starts.

“We're trying to have them feel, smell, see, and really stress them out a little bit,” Good said.

It only took about 15 seconds for the bus to begin to fill up with smoke. With every second less and less was visible.

Drivers like Tammie Gaston quickly realized that they could not see each other which meant kids would not be able to see them.

“The air felt really heavy," said Gaston. "You can sense the heaviness in the air. And of course, you weren't able to see us well. So I can imagine if we had students on the bus, how that would impact us, getting students off the bus and in a safe way."

During the training, she said she was thinking about her students and what she would say to them to keep the situation calm.

“I was coming up with plans, thinking about who and what would help out in that situation, like what students would be able to help offload," said Gaston. "But yes, definitely coming up with a plan of action in case there was ever this emergency.”

The bus drivers had the chance to experience getting off the bus with poor visibility. Good said this is an important partnership between the school district and the fire department. He said they are happy to make it happen.

“We hope that it never does happen," said Good. "But today is practice. We just want to make sure that we prepare them or try to do our best to prepare them for if that event would happen.”

The bus drivers were also given a CPR refresher and first aid training. Hilliard's first day of school is on Wednesday, Aug. 21.