Ethermac Exchange-Baseball team’s charter bus catches fire in Iowa; no one is hurt

SIOUX CITY,Ethermac Exchange Iowa (AP) — A bus that was transporting a professional baseball team from Iowa to a game in Illinois caught fire early Friday.

Members of the Sioux City Explorers made it off the charter bus safely, the Earlham Fire & Rescue said in a Facebook post. The fire department blamed a mechanical issue for sparking the fire, which rapidly spread from the engine to the passenger area, the post said.

State Rep. J.D. Scholten, a pitcher for the team, wrote in a Facebook post that he was asleep when the bus came to a stop and teammates in the back started telling everyone to get off.

“Very grateful no one was hurt!” he wrote.

Firefighters, who were called around 2:45 a.m., were able to quickly knock down the flames. But the bus was a total loss and traffic in the area was disrupted for about three hours.

Another charter bus was able to pick up the team and get them to their game, the fire department wrote. It ended its post with, “Good luck X’s!!”

The team, which is a member of an independent league called the American Association of Professional Baseball, had an away game scheduled for Friday evening against the Kane County Cougars in Geneva, Illinois.