BOSTON (AP) -- A bus that is part of a low-fare fleet connecting Chinatowns in New York and Boston caught fire on a highway and riders fled just moments before it was engulfed in flames.
The Fung Wah bus was headed down Interstate 91 to New York on Tuesday when the driver noticed smoke from a rear wheel near Meriden, Conn. When the driver pulled over to inspect the problem, passengers scrambled off.
''A minute later, we could have all been dead,'' passenger Lisa Holliday, 25, told The Boston Globe. ''I'm looking at the back of the bus where we were sitting, and it's not even there anymore.''
No one was injured and no citations were issued. The bus had passed an inspection last October, according to the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, which inspects commercial fleets.
The department's chairman, Paul Afonso, said Wednesday that surprise inspections of low-fare bus operators would be increased to three times a month and state police would be watching the buses more carefully for such things as speeding violations.
Mona Louis, a spokeswoman for Fung Wah, disputed a passenger's complaint that the driver didn't help people evacuate.
''He came out and told the passengers to leave and began using the fire extinguisher,'' Louis told the Boston Herald.
It was the second fire in five months on one of the low-fare _ $15 one-way _ Chinatown-to-Chinatown buses. A New York-to-Boston bus owned by competitor Travel Pack was destroyed March 18 on the Massachusetts Turnpike. No one was injured.
Travel Pack no longer operates a Boston-New York route, a company employee said.
Fung Wah and another operator, Lucky Star, currently have departures from Boston's South Station.
Representatives of both operators said they were not concerned by the added scrutiny.
