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Students from the U.K. on a ski trip lost some of their belongings but were otherwise unharmed after their tour bus caught fire north of Lake Louise.
60 passengers found themselves stranded when their bus went up in flames on the Columbia Icefields Parkway on Tuesday, RCMP said in a statement issued Wednesday. Of the passengers on board, 48 were youth on a ski trip from Tonbridge, U.K.
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Lake Louise RCMP responded to the scene around 5 p.m., Mounties said, and all occupants were removed safely.
The stranded passengers were taken to local business, The Lodge at Bow Lake, where they waited for another bus to transport them to their intended destination. The lodge is located approximately 20 minutes from where the bus broke down.
Local RCMP, EMS, fire rescue and Parks Canada worked together to safely remove passengers from the bus and transport them to safety, RCMP said.
Nicola Davies, a manager at the lodge, says a police officer arrived at the business around 5:30 p.m. and explained the situation, asking if the lodge could provide shelter. Passengers were ferried via police cars and ambulance around 6 p.m., staying until their replacement bus arrived at around 10 p.m.
Davies said the lodge made pitchers of hot chocolate and cookies for the passengers while they waited to resume their journey to Jasper.
She said a lot of the kids were shocked and had lost some personal belongings in the fire, but “the teachers were great, they were keeping everybody calm.”
She described the kids as resilient, saying they all seemed to cope with it in their own ways by talking about it or playing games. “A lot of them ended up just falling asleep,” said Davies.
The cause of the fire is believed to be mechanical, according to RCMP.
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