DOZENS of children fled from a bus between Basingstoke and Hook moments before it was engulfed in a fireball on Friday.

Sixty-six passengers, most of them children, escaped to the hard shoulder of the M3 on the northbound carriageway between junctions 5 and 6 before the double decker bus burst into flames.

Firefighters from Basingstoke, Odiham and Overton tackled the blaze and had it under control within two hours.

None of the children were hurt and one adult was treated for shock.

The drama unfolded when the driver of the Premier Connections Travel coach noticed smoke coming from one of the wheel hubcaps. The driver evacuated the bus and within minutes the entire bus was engulfed by flames.

Basingstoke firefighters received reports of a bus on fire between Basingstoke and Fleet services at 7.34pm. The bus was in the contraflow due to roadworks.

Twenty-five firefighters and three officers with five fire engines, two hose reels, two jets and eight breathing apparatus were scrambled to the scene.

While tackling the blaze the firefighters ran out of water and were forced to head to Odiham to replenish their supply from water-tanks set-up for the annual Odiham Fire Show held at the weekend.

The police closed the northbound carriageway of the M3 at junction 6 while the crews dealt with the blaze.

Motorists sat in heavy traffic for up to an hour and were redirected along the A30.

The children had been on a day trip and were travelling from Weymouth to Luton.

By 9.30pm, the blaze was extinguished and the road was reopened. The passengers were picked up by vehicles laid on by the coach operator. An investigation is being carried out into what caused the fire.

Managing director of the coach company, Jamie Gardner, said: “The driver is a hero. He saw through his mirror there was an issue and stopped on the hard shoulder. He got everybody off and then saw the vehicle was alight.”

Witness Paul Wood, from East London, said: “Some of the children seemed pretty shaken up by the whole thing, but I would have been too if I had been in that situation.”