TUNBRIDGE — Sonja and Mark Barter awoke early Thursday morning to a loud bang and a glowing light. Frightened, they jumped out of bed and she peered out the window to find the family’s GMC Yukon on fire, just a few yards from their home on Kelsey Mountain Road.

Sonja Barter, 30, grabbed the couple’s 5- and 10-year-old children from their bedrooms while her husband darted outside to try to extinguish the blaze. After a failed attempt to put out the flames, Mark Barter and his stepfather-in-law Steve Tabor, who lives across the street, used a tractor and a chain to drag the burning SUV a safe distance away.

Sonja Barter’s voice wavered as she recounted the terror she felt in an interview on Friday. Police say someone intentionally set the Barters’ vehicle on fire around 5 a.m. on Thursday, marking the third suspicious fire in Tunbridge in less than two weeks. None of the crimes have been solved, but Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. Steve Otis said the investigation is ongoing.

Sonja Barter said she believes if someone in fact set the fire, they knew people could be killed. She said she doesn’t know who would do that.

“They knew how close my vehicle was to my house,” she said. “Anybody would know that if you catch a vehicle on fire that close, it would spread to the home.”

The first suspicious fire in Tunbridge started around 11:30 p.m. on April 14 and involved an abandoned vehicle in the middle of the roadway near the intersection of Falls Hill Road and Howe Lane, which sits off Route 110 near the center of town. The vehicle had been stripped of all of its usable parts before the fire was set, police said in a news release at the time.

Then, on Tuesday, police received a call around 3:45 a.m. for a fire at 908 Gage Hill Road, a rural road off Route 14 near East Bethel. The blaze leveled a home and garage, estimated at $250,000, which were owned by the estate of Alice Smith, who died recently, Otis said. One or more people burglarized outbuildings on that property before the fire started, he added.

Finally, on Thursday, police responded to the Barters’ residence on Kelsey Mountain Road, also off Route 14, north of Gage Hill, toward South Randolph.

Perhaps most concerning is the progression of the fires, Otis said. They started with an abandoned vehicle in the middle of a roadway and advanced to an empty home and then a vehicle in a residential area that could have “very easily turned into a house fire and seriously injured people,” he said.

Community members have provided information to police about who may be responsible, but no one has been charged.

It is unclear if any of the suspicious fires involved the same person or people and what the motives may have been, Otis said. Asked about the prospects of solving these cases, Otis said he was hopeful.

“I think we will, given the amount of concern this is generating with the public in Tunbridge,” Otis said.

He encouraged others to come forward with information. Police are offering up to a $5,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction.

“Nowadays you can’t just sit on the sidelines and watch these things happen,” he said.

Although he couldn’t say with certainty, Otis said at least one of the incidents could be a drug-fueled crime. Someone broke into outbuildings on the Gage Hill Road property and stole items before the fire started, behavior that is consistent with someone trying to sell items to “pay for a habit,” Otis said.

Tunbridge isn’t the only community impacted by a recent crime spree. Ten White River Valley businesses in the Vermont towns of Bethel, Pittsfield, Rochester and Stockbridge have been targeted by burglars since April 9, the Herald of Randolph reported on Thursday. Cash, cigarettes, a car and tools have been among the items stolen, the paper reported.

The recent fire at the Barters’ house has not only impacted how safe the family feels at home, but it also has interrupted their work schedules. The burned vehicle was their main transportation to and from work, and it was covered only by liability insurance.

The couple hasn’t slept in the past 24 hours thinking about how close they were to “losing everything,” Sonja Barter said.

“Whoever did this, I want them caught,” she said.

Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.