OXFORD – School districts across across the state are awaiting the results of an investigation into the cause of a fire that destroyed a school bus at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris earlier this month.

“We may just be the tip of the iceberg,” Superintendent Mark Eastman told SAD 17 directors Monday night after watching surveillance video showing the 2007 Thomas Freightliner explode in flames on Sept. 3. About 200 students were waiting to board seven buses to take them home from after-school activities that day when the fire erupted. The driver escaped unharmed.

Eastman said he and Transportation Director Glenn Sirois have received calls from school districts and others concerned about their buses. One was from the Lisbon School Department, which reportedly took two similar buses off the road while waiting for the SAD 17 investigation to be concluded, he said.

“Two of the same year were taken off the road,” Sirois said of Lisbon’s response. “They said they have had numerous electrical issues.”

Lisbon’s transportation director and superintendent weren’t available for comment Tuesday.

“A lot of people are asking if it’s safe,” Sirois said of calls he has received from other school districts about their buses.

It is unknown how many of the 2007 Thomas Freightliner buses are on the road serving public and private entities, but one estimate heard by local school officials is about 150 in schools around Maine, a number supplier George Cressey of W.C. Cressey in Kennebunk says may be low.

“Customers are all calling and asking if there is something we need to do. To sideline a bus is way premature at this point. As a school bus supplier, Thomas (the maker of the bus) is very concerned about safety. We probably institute more recalls than other manufacturers, but I don’t have a crystal ball,” said Cressey, who supplies many of the school buses throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. “I’ll be the first to let my customers know if there is an issue. But I think (the SAD 17 incident) was a freak one-time issue.”

“People just want to be assured they’re doing the safe things and go from there. I don’t know if it’s product or maintenance or what caused the problem,” said Cressey, whose son Brian Cressey will be one of the investigators sent to Oxford Hills next week to try to determine the cause of the fire.

At SAD 72 in Fryeburg, Transportation/Maintenance Director Dave Powers said that like many others in the state, the school district has Thomas Freightliner buses purchased from Cresseys.

“We’re waiting word on what happened. We’re totally unsure right now,” Powers said.

He said he has contacted several people and sent a list of vehicle identification numbers to the manufacturer to double-check on recalls. Additionally, the state police are scheduled to be in Fryeburg on Wednesday for the annual bus inspection.

Powers said his school district buses do not have Mercedes engines, which is where the SAD 17 bus fire was suspected to have begun.

Investigators from SAD 17’s insurance company have been on site already to look at the bus, and next week investigators from Cressey and DailmerChrysler, which owns Freightliner, will fly in a team of investigators.

Sirois said bus 16, which was burned, had a warranty recall on breakers in April and he’s not sure whether a fire that destroyed a similar bus in Newport last December was the result of the same component.

SAD 48 Superintendent William Braun said Tuesday that investigators determined the fire that destroyed the same model bus in Newport was in an electrical component panel on the exterior of driver’s side.

“The feeling was there was a short in the electrical panel,” said Braun of that cause.

The SAD 48 bus was parked outside the home of the bus driver, as is standard in the school district, on a Saturday night over the Christmas holiday when it erupted in flames. It had last been driven the day before.

Braun said the manufacturer had recalled the part several months later.

A spokesman for the North Carolina-based company could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

SAD 17’s Sirois said the charred remains of bus 16 are in a warehouse awaiting inspection to determine the fire’s cause.

He said the bottom line in making sure the cause is determined is simple: “If we save one life that’s all I’m after.”