A MOTHER and her two children jumped out of their car minutes before it burst into a huge fireball on a busy Hampshire motorway.

Catherine Boog, 42, noticed thick smoke billowing out of her Ford Escort as she was driving along the M271 after collecting her children from school.

She managed to pull over on to the hard shoulder and got out of the car with her children before the car burst dramatically into flames.

She said: "Smoke started coming out of the bonnet and I knew instinctively that we had to get out. We managed to get well out of the way when the car just went up in huge flames. The smoke and the smell were unbearable but luckily we were not hurt.

"I managed to salvage half of my daughter's GCSE coursework but we left everything in the car and just got out."

Mrs Boog, from Totton, was driving to the B&Q store in Nursling at about 4pm yesterday when the drama began.

The M-registration Ford Escort had never given Ms Boog any previous problems in the three years she owned it.

Another motorist stopped to divert traffic away from the blazing car while a fire crew from Redbridge put out the flames.

Mrs Boog, whose children are aged 16 and 12, added: "We had a very lucky escape.

"I won't have a car now, which I need to take the children to school, so I will have to rely on friends to take them but thank god we're OK.

"We are all absolutely fine as we were well out of the way but it just shows that anything like this can happen. The fire brigade was here within five minutes but I just knew that we had to get out of the car."

The front of the car has been completely destroyed by the fire.