OAKLAND, Iowa (AP) — A fire erupted aboard a school bus in western Iowa early Tuesday, killing a student and the bus driver, investigators said.
The Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office says the bus driver was 74-year-old Donnie Hendricks of Carson, Iowa. The student who died was 16-year-old Megan Klindt.
No one else was on the bus when the fire erupted around 7 a.m. southeast of Oakland, which is about 35 miles east of Omaha, Nebraska.
Investigators said the bus caught fire after it backed out of a farm driveway and into a ditch across the road. The bus was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.
The remains of the driver and a student were found after the fire was extinguished, Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Lt. Rob Ambrose said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Initial reports on the fire indicated that as many as 20 people may have been on the bus, but Ambrose said only the student and the driver were on the bus at the time of the fire.
The ages and names of the victims weren't immediately released.
The bus was from the Riverside Community School District.
