Charles and Justin Bilton just wanted to enjoy a nice father-son hike through Glacier National Park in Montana.
They didn’t expect to drive through a nightmare of fire and flames just to stay alive.
In a Facebook post, Justin Bilton said he “drove through hell” with his father in the passenger seat of their rented vehicle on August 12, after a wildfire swept over them as they tried to escape the park. Video recorded from behind the wheel shows them driving through a world of flame and smoke, with fire on the road and no safe route in sight.
“Dad, this is insane!” the driver, Justin, tells his father in the video.
Justin and his father set out for a hike that day when the Howe Ridge Fire was only a few acres wide, expecting they’d have plenty of time to enjoy a hike in the forest without being threatened by the flames, he told Storyful.
However, the fire spread to cover hundreds of hectares within hours, forcing Justin and Charles, 70, to look for a way out.
“We hiked back to the car to get out where it was parked at the end of a dead road,” Justin told Storyful.
The pair climbed into their car and Justin switched on his video recorder, while Charles tried to keep him calm.
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The video starts with Justin driving the car slowly down a dirt road through the forest, with the orange and yellow glow of flames visible through the trees ahead.
“Do I go?” Justin asks.
“I think we can drive through this,” Charles says.
“Dad, what if the car blows up?” Justin says.
“Well, we’re dead,” Charles says. “Just keep driving.”
The car follows the road around a curve and over a bridge where a hedge can be seen burning.
Charles repeatedly urges Justin to slow down but Justin refuses, saying: “We’re not out.”
The car follows the road around another curve, up a hill and into the full inferno of the wildfire.
“Keep going,” Charles urges Justin, as the car starts to hit debris on the road. “Easy, easy. You can’t see! Just go easy now.”
Embers begin to splash across the windshield in the video. The road turns black and everything else looks orange, except for the flames and the blackened trees along the edges of the road.
“Dad, the car is heating up. It’s going to explode!” Justin says. “Oh Jesus God, help us.”
The car enters a cloud of thick smoke a few seconds later. “Dad, what if a tree falls on us?” Justin asks.
A tree falls across the car’s path less than 10 seconds later, forcing it to stop.
The video ends with Charles suggesting they get out and “use gloves” to move the fallen tree. However, the pair ultimately end up turning back.
They returned to the trailhead where they started, and were rescued by two park employees in a boat, Justin said.
“They saved our lives,” he said.
The rented car did not survive the escape.
The Howe Ridge Fire has burned 3,170 hectares (7,835 acres) since it started during a thunderstorm on August 11, according to the U.S. Incident Information System.
Fire crews have issued several evacuation orders in the area, and have been trying to protect the scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road through the area.
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