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Quick-Thinking Mom May Have Prevented Tragedy

She helped evacuate 22 kids after spotting flames under school bus
Posted Oct 23, 2025 1:15 PM CDT

A mother in Bethel, Minnesota, is being credited with helping avert a potential tragedy earlier this month after she spotted flames under a school bus as it was dropping off her 6-year-old daughter. "Right above the tire I just saw a burst of flame when I walked out," Kari Thorp tells FOX 9. "As soon as she got off the bus, it kind of exploded under there, too, so like a bigger flame, then it just was smoke coming from the bus," Acting quickly, Thorp alerted the driver, and together they evacuated all 22 children before the bus was engulfed by fire, WCCO reports.

Video from Thorp's Ring doorbell shows students from East Bethel Elementary gathering in front of her house as the bus burned. "Kids were crying. Kids were scared and freaking out," Thorp says. "It was quite emotional and kind of frantic." She says the front of the bus was on fire within minutes of the evacuation, and that the entire bus was engulfed in flames within 15 minutes. She says it was "crazy" to "hear the tires explode." The heat was so intense that part of the road in front of her home was melted. Nobody was injured, but some kids lost their backpacks and other belongings. Investigators are working to determine the cause of the blaze.

Thorp and the bus driver, Rick Gratton, have been recognized by St. Francis Area Schools for their quick thinking, which parents say likely prevented a far worse outcome. The community presented Gratton and Thorp with "thankful baskets," FOX 9 reports. Thorp tells WCCO she thinks about what could have happened if she hadn't seen the flames and alerted Gratton. "I don't think he would have gotten very far," she says. "And I don't think we would have been able to get those kids off the bus as fast. I don't know what would have happened. Because a lot of little ones sit up front and that's where it all started."

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