A couple weeks ago, back in July, I drove through the hellscape caused by the Carr Fire in Northern California. Both sides of I-5 were completely charred, with houses and villages in the distance completely charred to ashes. It broke my heart.
The people in communities like Redding, California have lost everything, now forced to live in shelters or completely relocate to find a roof over their heads.
There are huge parts of the United States that don’t really understand the devastation that a wild fire and how they ravage the the West Coast in the warm, dry months.
That’s merely a difference of geography – If you live on the East Coast where everything is lush and green from months and months of torrential rain, it’s hard to empathize with the exact opposite, where dry weather has created millions of acres of public land that are tinderboxes.
It’s just your reality.
That’s what captured my attention from this video. A group of hikers captured the terror of a wildfire in Glacier National Park. Fortunately, it had yet to engulf the dirt road they needed to escape.
Needless to say, they boogied on out of there quite fast.
If you turn the volume up, you’ll hear their panic about the car exploding from flames hitting the gas tank.
Fortunately, they made it out. Here’s continuation of their saga after the video stops rolling:
The video stopped when Justin and Charlie found a fallen tree in the middle of the road and decided to move it. As Bolton Jr. told reporters, on a burning road they got to the lake, where they met the workers of the national Park. Together with them they escaped by boat, leaving the car on the shore. According to Justin, within 10-15 minutes after they sailed, the car was engulfed in fire. Men call their salvation a real miracle.
Scary stuff. Big shouts to the brave firefighters who run and jump into these things to fight them.