Children evacuated from smoking bus

DeKALB – Three children were evacuated from a school bus after the driver noticed smoke was coming out of the vehicle’s dashboard.

No one was injured.

DeKalb Fire Battalion Chief Jim Zarek said the driver noticed the smoke after dropping a student off at a daycare near the intersection of Kimberly Drive and Normal Road.

Zarek said the driver and a school assistant helped the three special-needs children off the bus and called 911.

After examining the
bus with an engineer from First Student, the company that delivers DeKalb students, Zarek said that “there might be an electrical issue with the instrument cluster.”

The students, who were from Brooks Elementary, were loaded onto another bus, said Brenda Jergens, District 428’s transportation coordinator, who was onsite.