A WOMAN who helped divert traffic as firefighters tackled a burning bus on a residential estate in Leominster has described what she saw.

Fire tore through the bus parked on Buckfield Road, with firefighters called at around 8.45pm on Sunday.

The 16-seater bus, owned by M&S Coaches of Herefordshire, was well alight and crews used hose reel jets and foam, wearing breathing apparatus to extinguish the blaze.

Fortunately, despite the extent of the fire, no one was injured.

Maurice Peruffo, director of M&S Coaches of Herefordshire, said the driver had got out of the bus moments before he saw smoke coming out of the vehicle.

"He went back and tried to open the bonnet but by then it had damaged the cable so he got the fire extinguisher out and sprayed through the grill," he said.

However, the fire quickly took hold of the vehicle, which had 100 litres of fuel on board, and emergency services rushed to the scene.

Laura Nicholas, 22, was one of the first to witness the burning bus, having seen plumes of thick black smoke coming from the estate.

She said: "The windows blew out as the fire got more intense and then a couple of minutes later police and fire engines arrived and rushed to get it under control."

Laura and her partner helped to re-direct traffic as water hoses were running through bollards in the middle of the road.

"We could feel the heat from the blaze and the noises coming from the bus itself even from a distance was quite scary," she said.

"We really thought it was going to blow up but thankfully the firefighters managed to get it under control quite quickly and cars were able to get through again so we left the teams to it."