A fire that damaged several vehicles owned by the Toms River School District has been ruled accidental, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday.

Toms River Police Officer John Minor was on patrol along Route 37 around 2:30 a.m. Friday when he saw smoke on the south side of the highway. He searched the area and found several vehicles engulfed in flames in the school district’s transportation storage area on Industrial Way, police said.

Authorities said two Chevrolet buses and one Ford bus suffered extensive damage. Minor secondary exposure damage was done to a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The vehicles were within the school district’s transportation storage area at the time of the incident. 

The prosecutor’s office said investigators determined that the fire originated in the engine compartment of bus No. 240 and spread to two other school buses parked nearby. The cause of the fire and subsequent damage to the three buses was therefore deemed accidental.