Police in Kerzers are investigating whether the blaze on a regional PostBus was a deliberate act.
KERZERS, SWITZERLAND — A fire tore through a regional bus in the Swiss town of Kerzers on Tuesday evening, killing six people and injuring five others, as police opened a criminal investigation into whether someone on board deliberately started the blaze.
The fire broke out at about 6:25 p.m. on the main street of Kerzers, a town in Fribourg canton roughly 12 to 15 miles west of Bern. Police said three injured people were taken to hospitals with severe injuries, while two others were treated at the scene. The bus was operated by PostBus, a regional transit company tied to Switzerland’s national postal service. The deaths made the case one of the country’s deadliest transport fires in recent memory and quickly turned a local emergency into a national investigation.
Emergency crews arrived to find the vehicle fully engulfed, with flames ripping through the bus and smoke rising above the town center. Fribourg police spokesperson Frederic Papaux said investigators were looking at evidence that suggested the fire may have been intentional. “At this stage, we have elements suggesting a deliberate act by a person who was inside the bus,” Papaux said, while stressing that authorities had not yet established exactly how the fire began. He also said no other vehicle was involved. Video from the scene after firefighters put out the blaze showed a blackened shell of a bus standing in the road as officers sealed off the area and investigators began documenting the wreckage.
Officials have not publicly identified the dead, and police did not immediately say how many passengers and crew members were on board when the fire started. The number of people killed and hurt remained the clearest confirmed toll late Tuesday and early Wednesday: six dead, five injured, with three of the injured in serious condition. Papaux said passengers were seen getting off the bus in panic, some of them hurt. Reports circulating online about a possible accelerant or about a person setting themselves on fire were not confirmed by authorities. When asked about those claims, Papaux said police could not yet say whether gasoline or another flammable substance was used. That left a central question unanswered even as investigators began treating the scene as a possible crime.
Kerzers, also known by its French name Chiètres, is a small municipality in western Switzerland, and the fire struck in a visible, busy part of town. That made the scene especially stark for residents, commuters and first responders. Photos published after the blaze showed barriers around the burned-out vehicle, firefighters standing near the wreck and emergency teams working under floodlights as the evening turned dark. The bus itself was part of the yellow PostBus network that serves towns and rural routes across Switzerland. Because those buses are a routine part of daily life, the destruction of one in the center of a town added to the shock of the event. Swiss officials said rescue teams moved quickly, with ambulances and helicopters taking part in the response.
The investigation moved on two tracks: identifying the victims and injured, and determining what happened inside the bus in the minutes before the fire spread. Police said the case had become a criminal investigation. That means forensic specialists are expected to examine the remains of the vehicle, collect witness statements, review any nearby video and trace the movements of the people on board before the bus entered Kerzers. Authorities had not announced arrests, and they had not said whether they believed the suspected act targeted specific passengers, the driver or the bus itself. They also had not released a timetable for when names of the dead might be made public. Those gaps left families waiting for more information while investigators tried to separate verified facts from rumors that spread quickly online after the blaze.
The fire also landed at a sensitive moment in Switzerland, where another major blaze had already shaken the country earlier this year. In January, a fire at a bar in the ski resort of Crans-Montana killed 41 people and injured more than 100. The bus fire in Kerzers was much smaller in scale, but it revived public concern about fire safety, emergency response and how fast investigators can explain a deadly event. Swiss President Guy Parmelin said he was shocked and saddened by the deaths and said the case was under investigation. His statement added a national voice to a story that began as a local emergency but rapidly drew wider attention because of the death toll and the possibility that the fire was intentionally set.
By late Tuesday, the center of Kerzers had become both a crime scene and a place of mourning. Firefighters and police kept the area closed while specialists worked around the bus frame. Residents watched from behind barriers as emergency workers moved in and out of the cordoned zone. Officials offered only short public updates, reflecting how early the inquiry still was. That cautious approach left the strongest public voices to the police spokesperson and national leaders offering condolences. The most concrete facts remained grim and simple: a routine regional bus trip ended in an inferno, six people were dead, five others were hurt and investigators believed the cause may have come from a person on board. Until forensic results and interviews are complete, much of the story remains unsettled.
As of Wednesday, March 11, authorities had confirmed six deaths and five injuries and were continuing a criminal investigation in Kerzers, with the next major milestone expected to be further police findings on the cause of the fire and the identities of those killed.
Author note: Last updated March 11, 2026.