Page 3 - Eric Marx News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Middletown, california, a normally quiet community of 1300 residents, about 70 miles north of san francisco. that all changed on september 12, 2015, after months of unusually dry heat an enormous wildfire erupts, sending 200-foot high flames racing toward the town. >> the trees and topography and the type of material that was burned had not burned in many, many years which contributed to the fast rate of the spread of flame. >> get in the car! >> 16-year-old eric marx was watching the inferno from his grandmother's house in middletown when suddenly -- >> i saw the fire jump the road. so i told...

Pass over and you will be able to survive it. >> in the chaos, eric and his brother lose contact with their family. panicked, they decide to stay in their car and try to reach the nearby highway, but it doesn't take long to realize their mistake. >> there was fire hitting the window, embers. you could barely see five feet in front of you, even with the headlights. so we were just driving, we were driving on where we thought the road was. the entire engine compartment caught on fire, the wheels were catching on fire. our feet, we could feel the flames burning the metal and plastic under the car...

From all sides, eric's relatives take off in other vehicles while he jumps in the car with his brother. but as the brothers approach a nearby highway, they run straight into a wall of flames. >> hold on. go, go. oh, god. >> it's fire on the highway and you're in the hot seat. and later, how would you fare during an attack by an armed intruder? >> it looked like for some reason, this is going to be the day that i die. somebody sent someone to kill me. there's a denture adhesive that holds strong until evening.

Them with any materials available? >> you really shouldn't cover any, any vehicle with window covering, due to the fact that those are combustible materials, and those materials itself will start to catch fire, just based on the radiated heat. >> and rolling down your windows will only let the elements in faster. so if you chose b, you made the correct decision. keep those windows closed. >> what you want to do is stay encapsulated in that vehicle as best you can. it's imperative to make sure your windows are fully closed. visibility is maintained. it's going to be difficult to see, but what y...

>> what i see is the kids, you know, with the car burning. i was panicking. i was shaking. for the whole, you know, commotion that was happening. but just when i think i'm going to lose them, i was feeling numb, but i got out and run to them. >> eric and his extended family make it out, but his grandmother's house is totally destroyed, along with 60% of middletown's other homes. in the end, several firefighters suffer severe burns and four civilians lost their lives. >> i do think it is a miracle that we survived. it is the scariest thing in my life. and always will be. nothing can top that. >...