A brush fire appearing to be miles away from the Winder family as it drove down a Utah highway suddenly turned into a threatening blaze, one made worse when traffic stopped ahead.
Alyssa Winder, with her 11-month-old son Cole in the backseat and her mother Tina Christensen driving, began videotaping the fire as they traveled on I-15 south of St. George, Utah, on Sunday afternoon.
“It’s just brush; if it was trees, it would be a lot more dangerous,” Winder can be heard saying on the video.
Moments later, traffic came to a standstill as the fire raced toward the highway and their vehicle.
“The ordeal was terrifying,” Winder told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. “It all happened so fast we didn’t have much time to react. We watched as the fire traveled from miles away and arrived right outside our vehicle. We could feel the heat inside the car as the fire approached us.”
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Winder’s mother can be heard saying, “What do we do now?”
“We just sit here,” Winder replied. “Just stay here. Just stay.”
The video shows the terrifying moments:
“We found out that the two-lane highway was blocked in one lane by fire trucks up ahead,” Winder told For The Win Outdoors. “So traffic was moving slowly to start with, but I’m not sure why it came to a complete stop. It could have been someone who deserted their car. People were leaving their cars, running away, driving off road. Doing anything…to escape. You can even hear the scream of a lady running past our car right as the fire approached.
“There is a moment where I put the camera down because I was too afraid to look at the flames outside our car. This was the scariest moment for myself, it was also when, miraculously, traffic started moving.”
The incident occurred after a blown tire on the interstate started what is being called the Cottonwood Trail Fire, which spread quickly because of strong winds, according to the St George News. Officials eventually closed the southbound side of the highway but reopened it Sunday night.
Photos courtesy of ViralHog.