Car carrying 5 people runs off the road and into a hot geyser in Yellowstone

By Forrest Brown, CNN

(CNN) — Bears and bison aren’t the only potential hazards when visiting Yellowstone National Park. The area’s thermal features also provide a point of caution as tourists in one car found out this week.

On Thursday, a car with five occupants inadvertently drove off a roadway and into the Semi-Centennial Geyser, according to a news release from the National Park Service.  The vehicle was fully submerged in about 9 feet (2.75 meters) of hot water.

All five were able to escape the vehicle, and they were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the release said.

Law enforcement rangers closed both lanes of the roadway on Friday for about two hours near the accident scene to remove the car from the water, the release said.

The incident is under investigation, the news release said.

The Semi-Centennial Geyser thermal feature is acidic and has surface water temperatures ranging around 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 Celsius), the release said. There are five types of hydrothermal features visitors can easily see at the park: Hot springs, geysers, mud springs, travertine terraces (hot springs that rise up through limestone) and fumaroles (steam vents).

There are more than 10,000 such features in Yellowstone, and there are more geysers in Yellowstone than anywhere else on Earth.

Meanwhile, the park said earlier this week that the fire danger in the vast wilderness area was raised to the “high” level, meaning campfires are permitted only “within established fire rings in campgrounds.” The fire threat levels range from “low” to “extreme.”

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