The students were on their way home from visiting the USS Hornet in Alameda when their bus blew a tire and then caught fire.
Many recorded cell phone video and snapped photos as they evacuated the bus.
The fire happened Thursday afternoon on Interstate 5, a few miles north of Patterson. "We were, like, rushing out," Kerman Senior Robbin Boatner said. "The teachers and everyone just started grabbing stuff and running out."
"There were some kids crying and everyone was on the phones calling their parents," Boatner said.
In the pictures you can see the students moving away from the smoke and flames. Another image shows the bus after the fire, the only thing left is the charred frame.
Two hours after the students were supposed to be back, they arrived at Kerman High School in a replacement bus.
For most of them the fear was gone, but that's not the case for some parents. "I think the kids were lucky to be alive after that thing," Paul Magana said.
"That's some scary stuff, those are pictures you just see on the internet, but you don't figure you'd be getting them in a text from your daughter," Marlene Nevarez said.
No one was hurt. But witnesses told Action News students and teachers lost personal items like cell phones and jackets in the fire.