The members of metal band Fear Factory narrowly escaped certain death when their bus caught fire on Thursday morning.

After playing a show in Sheffield, during their tour of England, the band were traveling to London when the bus driver noticed smoke coming from one of the back wheels.

According to Dino Cazares, the driver “stopped, jumped out and noticed a flame underneath the wheel well. He tried to extinguish it, but the flames were too much.

“Everyone was woken up by one of our crew yelling get everyone up and out of the bus,” Cazares said. “Everyone grabbed [their] bags and ran off the bus. We stood on the side of the freeway going, ‘Thank God we all made it out’ until someone noticed our merchandise guy was still asleep on the bus so our good friend ran back on the smoke-filled bus and got him out just minutes before the bus was completely in flames.”

The bus was engulfed in about 20 minutes, he said. The band’s trailer, containing all their gear, was saved, but everything on the bus is gone.

“Some of us lost wallets, money, computers etc.,” Cazares said. “But that’s not important compared to our lives.”

The BBC reports that: The incident happened at about 0300 BST on the southbound carriageway near junction 18. The bus stopped and the people inside were led to safety.

Two lanes of the motorway were closed for a time and then one remained closed while the bus was recovered from the scene.

By 0900 BST both lanes of the carriageway had been reopened.

A spokesman for Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service said they were called to the blaze at about 0300 BST to reports that the vehicle's brakes had caught fire.

The fire was brought under control after about 40 minutes.

FEAR FACTORY were set to play in Burgas, Bulgaria this Sunday, butВ the promoter ofВ Most of Evil cancelled the show "due to poor presales".