Cool-As-Ice MTA Driver Evacuates Bus-On-Fire

UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN — A relatively green MTA driver kept his cool when his crosstown bus caught on fire while full of passengers around 5 p.m. on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon on the Upper East Side.

Alex Soogrim, 25, was heading east on 79th Street and had just crossed Park Avenue when the engine of his articulated crosstown bus shut down. Soogrim said that as he tried to restart the bus, a dashboard light indicating a fire in the engine compartment became illuminated, and he soon saw smoke pouring from the back of the bus in his side view mirrors. Most of the seats on the extra-long bus were full at the time

"I was a little flustered," Soogrim said.

Soogrim remained calm, though, and directed passengers to evacuate the bus and to move onto the sidewalk in front of The Belgravia apartment building, at 124 E. 79th St.

"The smoke was very big," said a doorman at the Belgravia, who declined to give his name. The doorman added that the evacuation of the bus was orderly despite the alarming site of a column of smoke pouring from the back of the vehicle.

The bus' fire suppression system soon kicked in and extinguished the flames before fire officials arrived.

Soogrim's vehicle is the second MTA bus to have spontaneously burst into flames in recent months. In April, an MTA bus caught fire near Grand Central Station. There were no injuries in that incident.

Soogrim, who is less than a month away from the end of his year-long probationary period as an MTA driver, remained with the vehicle after his passengers disembarked.