KEARNY — Seven large production buses and trailers to be used at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade went up in flames Monday morning in the bus company's parking lot.

Video shows the buses on fire next to the building that houses Royal Buses on Business Route 1 & 9 around 6 a.m.

Firefighters began attacking the fire from ladders. They eventually got past a locked chain fence and put water on the buses from the ground.

Chrisel Flores, a booking agent for Royal Buses, told New Jersey 101.5 that only a groundskeeper was at the building when the fire started. The groundskeeper was not injured, Flores said.

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The owners were awakened by a phone call from their security company and watched the buses go up in flames on surveillance video.

"We don't have any more information. We don't know why it occurred, how it happened. We were woken up and the fire was going already," Flores said. "We have no clue."

FIre at Royal Bus in Kearny 11/21/2
FIre at Royal Bus in Kearny 11/21/21 (CBS New York via YouTube)
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$4 million worth of buses destroyed

One of the buses costs approximately $640,00. Royal Buses guts the buses and rebuilds them to be used as makeup trailers, production buses and special event vehicles.

The buses were being prepared for use at Thursday's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They store their buses & trailers at several locations in New Jersey and New York City.

"Thank God we didn't bring in the rest of our fleet. We are able to compensate," Flores said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Kearny Fire Department.

A company caller Amerifilm located on the same property was unaffected by the fire. They rent out trailers for construction sites.

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