OPT conducts Bus Fire Evacuation Drill

The 2023-2024 school year is just around the corner and preparations are in order, with one such preparation—the Bus Fire Evacuation Drill—conducted by the CNMI Public School School System Office of Pupil Transportation yesterday at their office in Lower Base.

For the first time, Tinian and Rota bus drivers, along with Saipan bus drivers came together for the drill, rather than conducting it separately. 

About 20 bus drivers were from Saipan, three were from Tinian, and five were from Rota.

The drill was made realistic with a fog simulator turned on and emitted a thick layer that mimicked smoke inside the buses. The drivers had to navigate through the smoke and retrieve mannequins from the buses as part of the evacuation drill.

Joseph Muna, Safety Officer of OPT who led the drill, said that the exercise’s purpose is to hone the bus drivers’ skills, so in that way, if an emergency, in this case a fire arises, they are able to respond, to assist the bus riders, and also to familiarize the drivers with the procedures and guidelines of how they conduct their evacuation plans.

With the fire evacuation drill specifically, Muna said the exercises “were scenario based, where we inform the driver that we’ve identified smoke in the bus; then show what are the steps in evacuating the students; and to ensure that the drivers are well aware of the steps to evacuate the bus; and it’s part of their professional development as well.”

A special education bus driver of two years, Norbert Ambalan, said that this was sort of a refresher for him as they also had this training last year. He said last year, they did the drill in pairs, but now, they did it solo, which was more challenging.

Asked how confident he is in case of an emergency, he said “I’m really confident that I can do the procedure safely and make sure that everyone’s out when a fire occurs.”

The drill was also observed by the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services firefighters.

DFEMS public information officer Robert Mojica said their role in the drill was to observe the training. “We’re here to observe the school bus operators and make sure that they’re able to command and control what’s going on inside the buses,” said Mojica.

“We try to make this drill more focused on them because in case of emergency, we won’t be able to get there until after the incident, so we try to make it so that the school bus operators that are first on scene, know how to have the kids out of the bus as soon as possible,” he added.

Mojica said that DFEMS have their own separate training for school bus emergencies and have firefighters who know how to enter the bus and in full bunker gear if they’re doing extraction.

As a word to students who ride the bus, Mojica said “If you know there’s an emergency, just drop your bag. Your life is more important than your bag; if you see something that doesn’t look right, say something and tell the bus driver. The bus driver is up front and is focused on the road, but if a student says something, they can react.”