UPDATE: Timeline Detailing Our Ongoing Communication with BISD About Bus Fires

Photo by Miguel Roberts, Brownsville Herald

Two fires within the space of a week, October 4 and October 9, 2013, were preceded by another fire, April 10, 2013.  

The two October 2013 fires involved buses by the same manufacturer, the International Corporation.  
With the two October fires, 30 and 29 students, respectively, were led out to safety by alert bus drivers.

International Corporation's parent company, Navistar, hired an investigative team to research the cause of the fires as did BISD.  Neither of those reports completed November 2013 were ever released to the public by BISD.  

BISD Attorney Miguel Salinas

On May 28, 2014 we filed a request with BISD under the Public Information Act seeking copies of both reports.  A certified letter from BISD Staff Attorney Miguel Salinas arrived 10 working days later stating that our request had been forwarded to the Texas Attorney General claiming an exception under the Texas Public Information Act sections 551.001-552.154.

5 days later we received another certified letter from Salinas with an enclosure of the district's claim of pending litigation.  A large section was blacked out.

Notice above that Mr. Salinas claims that "Litigation had been contemplated since the November 2014 draft report was received and long before the subject request of May 29, 2014."  He must have meant the draft was received November 2013 as "November 2014" is still in the future.  Salinas also states that "the information at issue is intricately and specifically linked to the contemplated litigation," implying litigation has been merely "contemplated," not actually initiated.  

An earlier MMB article reported a tip we received concerning possible contributing causes to the fires:

1. BISD school buses inspected were observed with an accumulation of accelerants in the engine compartment; oil and other fluids. This is a basic maintenance issue corrected with regular spray washing of the engine compartment. A spark could ignite.

2. An aftermarket "fuel-saving" device was installed in a number of buses, compromising the integrity of the fuel line. Fuel line bursting or leakage around this insertion may have been a combustion source.

So far BISD has denied our PIA request based on "contemplated" litigation.  That litigation does not appear to be considered against IC, Navistar, for two obvious reasons:

1.  Over half of the BISD bus fleet were manufactured by the International Corporation and continue to be in use.

2.  BISD recently ordered and received a large shipment of IC parts, indicating they plan on continued usage of IC buses.  

Also, if the issue is solely maintenance related, BISD would not sue their own maintenance department.  All of the above leads to speculation that the aforementioned company distributing the aftermarket "fuel saving" device may the object of BISD's 

"contemplated" litigation. 

BISD PIO Drue Brown

Here is our Public Information Request filed via Public Information Officer Drue Brown June 14, 2014:

Dear Mrs. Brown,


I'm requesting copies of any invoice within the last ten years from Emissions Technology of Texas, LLC, also DBA as Eco Fuel Enhancer/ 1373 CR 128, Floresville, TX 78114

Thanks,

Jim Barton

We will continue to keep posting developments in this matter as they occur.