Report on Putney Bus Garage Fire Released
Vehicle destroyed after demister failed to switch off
The bus on fire in the Chelverton Road garage. Picture: TfL
March 21, 2025
A Transport for London (TfL) report into the fire that occurred at Putney Bus Garage last year has been released to the public.
It became available thanks to a Freedom on Information (FOI) report and shows that the incident in which a bus was destroyed in the building on Chelverton Road at around 8:19am on 24 January 2024 was due to the electric heater element for a window demister becoming stuck in the on position.
At the end of the previous day the driver of the electric bus which had been operating on route 265 reported the vehicle as non-operational not noticing that the demister was still on. Once the bus was switched off the on-board safety system prevented the bus from restarting
again. It was towed to Putney and left outside the garage as it was full.
When other vehicles had cleared space in the garage engineers based in Putney used a boost pack to move the stricken vehicle into a designated bay inside and put it on charge. This circumvented the on-board safety system and this meant that the stuck on heater element activated without the fanmotors running and reached sufficient temperature to ignite the bus. After just 8 minutes, sparks and black smoke were observed coming from the front of the vehicle. A garage engineer took the bus off charge, isolated the charger, raised the alarm and helped to safely evacuate the building while the Fire Brigade were called.
The burnt out bus after the fire. Picture: TfL
Following the incident Go Ahead announced that it was checking all 380 electric vehicles in its fleet to ensure their safety. Subsequently and instruction has gone out from the manufacturer not to disable the on-board safety system when the bus doesn’t start.
Less than two weeks previously there had been a fire on an electric bus on Wimbledon Hill Road. The same report revealed that it was concluded that this was caused by a fault with the vehicle’s electrical system.
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