MOBILE, Ala. — A school district here has announced immediate plans to deploy a fire suppression system in all of its special-needs school buses and eventual plans to add the system to the rest of its buses.

Mobile County Public Schools will install Fogmaker North America’s fire suppression system for engine compartments on all of its 100 special-needs school buses within 60 days, according to a news release from the system supplier. The district will eventually equip its remaining 600 buses with Fogmaker’s self-contained water mist fire suppression system.

"As the largest school district in Alabama, we serve as a role model with the deployment of proven technology to enhance the safety of our students," said Pat Mitchell, the district’s director of transportation. "We believe the installation of Fogmaker fire suppression systems confirm that commitment to our students, their parents, and to our local communities."   

As SBF previously reported, in June, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued several safety recommendations as a result of its investigation into the fatal 2017 school bus fire in Iowa, including one on school buses being equipped with automatic fire suppression systems.

"We commend Mobile County Public Schools as they take this substantial step of adding additional safety to their bus fleet," said Kent Tyler, executive vice president of Fogmaker North America. "I think we would all agree that school buses are the safest form of transportation on the road. But as the NTSB outlined during their recent hearing, fire suppression is a critically important safety issue. Our patented Fogmaker technology is designed to not only automatically suppress these thermal events, but also provide additional time for occupants to safely evacuate the bus."