While joyful singers performed inside a South Haven area church last night the bus they had chartered to get there was burning wildly outside. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the fiery mess.
South Haven area firefighters were called out to the parking lot at Peace Lutheran Church on Blue Star Highway in South Haven Township shortly after 8:30 last night when a charter bus that had delivered the South Bend area performers to the church caught fire while the driver was moving it.
South Haven Area Emergency Services fire teams say that the driver of the bus had dropped off members of the South Bend Chamber Singers at Peace Lutheran and was in the process of moving the bus when he spotted a fire in the rear of the vehicle. He attempted to douse the flames with an onboard fire extinguisher, but by the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the entire rear of the bus was engulfed in flames.
The Holiday Concert at Peace Lutheran was sponsored by the South Haven Performance Series with the South Bend Chamber Singers performing the show when the fire happened. Cause of the blaze remains under investigation.
Another bus from the charter service company arrived in South Haven to transport the singers back to their homes in South Bend last night.
Photo courtesy of Tom Renner of South Haven.
