Couple Pulled From Flames : Rescue: Pair narrowly escape blast as collision shuts down Golden State Freeway, sparks 450-acre brush fire.

Two people were pulled from a burning car seconds before it burst into flames Friday morning following a traffic collision that sparked a 450-acre brush fire and closed the Golden State Freeway.

Northbound traffic came to a virtual standstill for more than four hours as CHP officers were forced to alternately close part or all of the freeway so firefighters could battle the brush fire alongside it.

Three people involved in the accident, including the pair rescued from the burning car, were hospitalized with moderate injuries.

The ordeal began at about 11:50 a.m. when a car driven by Efren Diaz Sr., 68, of Fresno, broke down in one of the freeway’s middle lanes, about half a mile north of Castaic, said Deputy Victor Lewandowski of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.

Diaz’s car was then rammed by a red pickup truck moving at about 65 m.p.h., trapping Diaz and his wife, Marina, 28, inside.

“Immediately after impact, the car caught fire,” said the deputy, who witnessed the collision as he was preparing to stop and help the couple.

The car was knocked into the base of a grassy hillside on the left side of the freeway, along with the truck and a limousine the truck had careened into. Lewandowski, his partner Alan Shapiro and the limousine driver--an off-duty Bakersfield firefighter--rushed to the car, where flames were visible from the hood and along the bottom.

The couple was too dazed, or injured, to get out by themselves, Lewandowski said.

Efren Diaz was pulled through the driver’s window, since the door was stuck, said Robby Pratt, the off-duty firefighter. By then, flames had begun spreading over the passenger’s side of the car, so Marina Diaz was also pulled through the driver’s side.

“As soon as we got her out, the whole thing caught fire,” Pratt said. “It was like in the movies.”

The couple and a passenger in the limousine were taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia. Pratt and two people in the pickup truck were not seriously injured.

Winds of about 5 m.p.h. pushed the brush fire into hills along the north side of the freeway, said Chief Michael Freeman of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. About 250 firefighters, including two hospitalized for heat exhaustion, and nine aircraft brought the fire under control.