CRYSTAL CITY, Va. -- Driver training, preventive maintenance and high-tech equipment are the best bets for the motorcoach industry to take on one of its major menaces - bus fires.

Thats the shared opinion of more than 150 industry representatives who gathered here last month for a special Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance summit on bus safety.

Although their basic ideas were not necessarily new, they did emphasize that it will take a combination of all three measures to be most successful in preventing fires and minimizing damages when they occur.

To help get the job done, they also suggested the industry needs to develop a method of tracking bus fires so detailed and accurate information on their numbers, causes and damages can be maintained. Efforts to gather such information have been made in the past by safety consultants, trade groups and others, but no one has ever been sure of the accuracy of the data.

"Although fires dont occur too often, we dont know how often and thats something we really need to know," noted Neil Meltzer of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, where bus fire testing is being done.

He said a new reporting system that separates bus fires from bus accidents would help so government regulators and the industry can learn as much as possible about the causes and what could have been done to prevent them.

"We do see some evidence that more fires are being reported," he noted.

Meltzer said data collected from various sources in the past indicate that there are about 160 fires a year with about 36 percent of them starting in the engine and 32 percent igniting in wheel wells.

The engine fires often are triggered by bad battery connections, alternators, filters, turbochargers and other components in the engine compartments, while brakes and wheel bearings start most of the fires in the wheel wells.

"The right fire suppressants and fire detection systems have the potential of preventing more than 70 percent of the fires," he stressed.

Other high-tech equipment that monitors exhaust systems, tires and other hot components on the buses possibly could eliminate even more fires, according to other industry representatives who participated in the conference.

During an exercise in which they were asked to prioritize the industrys main safety issues, most of them offered up bus fires as an important one, noting that the use of high-tech equipment that warns drivers of fire dangers and extinguishes them as they break out would be a major boost to the industrys fire control efforts.

Training, too, they said is critical, with special educational classes needed for not only drivers, but mechanics as well.

They suggested that well-trained mechanics can help eliminate potential fire troubles by being more thorough when doing routine and preventive maintenance work on their coaches.

Additionally, they said drivers need to be provided continuous training so they can recognize fire hazardous quickly and know what to do when they discover a problem.