Catherine Morgan and her husband Doug Folka were planning to head out to a barbecue Saturday night.

But when they stepped out the front door of their North Otter home, they saw a bigger barbecue than they had bargained for.

Morgan and Folka's home survived a shower of hot cinders as a brush fire raged along the Trans-Canada Highway on the edge of their rural property.

Quick action by their friends and neighbours, and by the Langley Township firefighters, prevented the loss of their home and possessions, the couple said.

Folka said Morgan emerged from their home and swore at the sight that greeted her at around 4:15 p.m.

A sizeable tree burst into flames as they watched.

"It just went poof, it exploded," Folka told the Langley dvance. "And it was scarier than hell."

"A little too close for our liking," was how Morgan described the conflagration.

The fire spread along the north side of the freeway, starting from just east of the 248th Street overpass, and jumping to start a new blaze as the wind carried embers. The fire raged as far as 256th Street - almost a mile away.

Firefighters rushed virtually every available piece of equipment out to extinguish the blazes, while dozens of drivers called in to report the fire from their cellphones.

There were 50 firefighters and every available pumping truck - except one - said assistant Langley Township chief Bruce Ferguson. Surrey firefighters stepped up to man the Murrayville firehall in case a second emergency hit.

Folka said he called 911 immediately after seeing the fire, and the 30 seconds he waited for an operator seemed like four hours.

When he was told the fire had already been reported, he went in search of workers at a tree nursery that surrounds his own land. At the advice of the firefighters who turned up soon after, he turned on his neighbour's irrigation system and sprinklers.

Area residents alerted by the column of smoke also helped the couple by using garden hoses to spray the shingled roofs of their homes.

"All the neighbours were out there," said Morgan.

One of them noticed that some bark mulch around the property's garage had started to smolder and doused that fire. The couple could have lost the entire garage, and the classic car up on blocks inside.

Folka has since found a few holes burned in a canvas gazebo roof next to his home.

The efforts of those who pitched in with sprinklers was much appreciated by firefighters.

"That was a great asset to us," Ferguson said.

Firefighters were busy up and down the mile-long length of the fire, frantically trying to extinguish the blaze for hours.

The first firefighters arrived at about 4:30 p.m., and the fire wasn't fully contained until about 8 p.m., Ferguson explained.

However, they managed to keep it from destroying any buildings or getting into any major stands of trees.

The fire penetrated about 100 metres off the highway, in the area of the old government gravel pit near 256th Street, he elaborated. He estimated 20 acres were burned.

The blaze came close to turning into a forest fire and spreading through the rural neighbourhood, said the assistant chief, who praised the work of the firefighters who doused the blaze.

"That's hard work, lugging hose through all that terrain," he said.

"They did a hell of a job," Folka added.

Another resident grateful to the firefighters is Township Mayor Rick Green.

"That was a couple of hundred yards from my place," the mayor said.

He was considering trying to evacuate his five horses and other livestock before the fire was brought under control.

"This has been my worst nightmare," Green said.

He examined the extent of the damage from the two fires on Sunday and was amazed at how much land had been scorched.

"The fire department did an outstanding job," Green said.

The cause of the fire is still unknown, but Ferguson suspects it was a cigarette butt thrown from a passing car. There was no evidence of any other cause, such as a car accident or bonfire.

The fire caused inconvenience for drivers using the freeway. Both eastbound and westbound lanes were closed for a short time, with the westbound lanes remaining shut down for several hours.

The road closures happened just as drivers from Vancouver and the western suburbs were heading home from the Abbotsford Airshow.

Langley RCMP and the Port Mann Freeway Patrol diverted traffic around from the 264th to 232nd Street interchanges, with many drivers clogging Fraser Highway and other alternate roads well into the night.