Fire damages 40 decommissioned SEPTA buses at Philadelphia storage yard

Latest developments in a massive fire that tore through a SEPTA bus depot in Tyagan Nightstown section of the city. More than three dozen buses damaged and thick black smoke could be seen all across the city skyline. Action News reporter Annie McCormack joins us live with the latest on this fire and it's out now, right Annie? Yeah, and John and crews are still out there at this point. Our vantage point is a little bit lower right now because the roads have reopened around the bus depot. But as they're still working to put water on those buses, but it the fire has been contained for some time. According to SEPTA, 40 buses were damaged. 14 of them were electric vehicles. But at this hour, they still don't know what the cause is. Chopper 6 over the massive plume of black smoke that could be seen for miles around the city. The fire was reported at around six o'clock this morning here at SEPTA's Midvail District Bus depot and the city's Tyogga Nicetown section. By the time the smoke cleared, you could see the buses melted to the ground. This was a challenging blaze for firefighters as the buses are tightly packed, allowing flames to spread quickly and crews were without access to water in the large lot. SEPTA officials say this location is the transit agency's largest facility and that they conduct day-to-day maintenance on active buses and that it also serves as a storage facility for dozens of decommissioned buses which were the ones that caught fire. No maintenance was happening at the time of the fire and SEPTA officials say the batteries in the electric buses were deenergized. We don't really believe that there's anything majorly harmful in the air. It's just that it's a precautionary measure to tell people to uh turn off HVAC systems or put their windows down and things of that nature. And you can see some of the damaged buses right there. SEPTA officials say that it did the fire didn't impact regular services. They will be out spraying water and also towing some of those damaged buses for some time. As for the air quality, they say it won't impact any of the people around here. And again, they're still working to figure out that cause. SEPTA officials expect to have a 1 p.m. press conference. We hope to learn more. We can bring it to you at 4 and 6 today. For now, reporting live in Tyogan Icetown, Annie McCormack, Channel 6 Action News. Sarah, yeah, the the smoke from that so impressive today. Annie, thank you.