♪ one and all tonight on "nightline" -- the incredible power. the majestic fury. unleashed. we're venturing to the most explosive place on the planet. >> when you're this close, you not only hear that boom, but you feel it. >> with a team of thrill seekers. and one unlikely adventurer. >> lots of things could go wrong. >> willing to go to hell and back. >> five meters. two meters. oh, my god. >> in pursuit of the ultimate shock. the stakes are high. >> the main danger is, you could die. >> as we face off with one angry volcano. a special edition of "nightline," inside the ring of fire, starts in just seconds.

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and very brave adventurer. >> reporter: the sheer force of it is like nothing else on the planet. when you're this close, you not only hear that boom, but you feel it. what you see is stop in your tracks stunning. we're inside the ring of fire. the most explosive terrain on earth. bearing witness to one of nature's most violent and unpredictable forces. and at the center of it all, 11-year-old molly ambrose. the world's youngest volcano hunter. >> came a long way. and the only way to g in here -- >> reporter: she's traveled indonesia with her father brad, who makes a living filming rare images of nature's most explosive threat.

>> everything with a volcano is different. they have different personalities. >> reporter: right now, they have venturing to one of the angriest. to capture the ultimate shot of this violent volcano, located on an uninhabited, inhospitable isla island. what are the changers on a volcano? >> lots of things could go wrong. when the lava comes out of the crater, it could hit you and you could get burned or a rock can hit you in the head. >> this is a dangerous play. >> reporter: leading this odyssey, brad's boss, jeff mackley. a legend in the business. >> at the moment, i'm about as close as you can get to the volcano. >> reporter: and a lifelong adrenaline junky. >> when you find something you like, you do it again and again

though it may cause you harm, i think is how you describe that. >> five meters. >> reporter: together, these new zealand ers have been to hell and back. >> oh, my god. oh -- >> reporter: cashing in big with breathtaking footage like this. just feet from a chaotic caldron of bubbling lava. >> what does it look like? >> looks like the surface of the sun. it looks like all of my wildest dreams. >> reporter: its pictures like these that have made them famous. but new adventures beckon. the more remote and difficult the journey, the greater the prize. and we want in. so, we ask them to be our guides. but can they really pull it off with a child in tow? every time you go out there and you get on a volcano, what are you hoping for? >> i'm hoping to come back alive. >> reporter: so am i, because this journey will be treacherous. indonesia is home to a record

147 active volcanoes. and on our way, we pass through this hellscape. a volcanic sulfur mine engulfed with toxic gas. a large enough eruption could unleash a giant acid lake on everyone below. water so toxic, it dissolves metal. it is risky, evenadults who work here and certainly not i deal for an 11-year-old. >> what do you think of this place? >> it's cool. really cool. >> reporter: this is an inherently dangerous and unpredictable place. does molly have any place being there? >> i think so. she's getting world experience that she's not going to get anywhere else. there's only so much you can learn from looking at a tv screen or experiencing on a computer. >> reporter: brad, a divorced dad, is almost always on the road. and if molly didn't come along, he says he'd barely see her at all. >> because i actually live four, five hours away from her, i want

the time that we have together to be special. >> reporter: this volcanic mine is a first for molly, but jeff's been here before. >> it's been ten years since i was last year and things have changed an awful lot. now the tourists outnumber the miners, probably 100 to 1. >> reporter: volcano tourism is the latest trend in adventure travel. and that's a problem for jeff, but no client is willing to pay top dollar for pictures anyone can get. to stay at the top of his game, he has to up the ante. how far are you willing to go to get those shots? >> to the ends of the earth. >> reporter: and that's exactly where we're headed. >> it's one of the most active volcanoes on earth at the moment. but a place most people have never heard of. >> reporter: let alone seen. we take two planes. a long drive. and hook up with a local guide

who helps us hitch a ride on a tuna fishing boat for the final leg. the only way to get out to this volcano is to take one of these boats six hours, at least, i'm told it's going to be pretty bumpy. >> disappear for a couple of days and go fishing. and hopefully they come back. >> reporter: this is the flores sea, and we are surrounded by volcanoes, stretching 25,000 miles around the pacific. this ring of fire is home to 90% of the world's earthquakes, and by far, most volcanic eruptions. you have tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes. the ring of fire is the most volatile place on earth? >> well, i wouldn't call it volatile. i'd call it necessary. if you didn't have that stuff going on, the earth would be tearing itself apart. when you go to these places, if you got something, you don't have it. if you need a hospital, there isn't one. if something goes wrong, you're screwed. >> reporter: our local guide

says fewer than 50 westerners have ever braved the journey. certainly none as young as molly. >> maybe she should move with daddy. >> reporter: the trip is brutal. six grueling hours on a dodgy boat speeding into oblivion. only molly keeps smiling. the rest of us, queasy. >> it's erupting right now. >> reporter: oh, my god. that's huge. it's almost like on cue, just as we started to get close, it erupted. almost as a welcome, or maybe a warning. one by one, we load up. high five, we made it. even this strange passenger. our guides insist we bring him along as a sacrifice to the spirit of the volcano. an idea molly hates.

hello, we just made it. we're now on sacred ground. low cams have always steered clear for fear of upsetting the mountain. that's it. we're alone. we're alone out here. when night falls, we get to work. and with only 48 hours on this island, every second counts. what do you have to do to get the shot? >> well, pretty much have to stay awake with a camera aimed at the action for as long as it takes to get the action. you don't know when that's going to come. or if you're going to run out of batteries. >> the largest eruption we've had so far happened, so, now i'm going to go and see how big it really was. >> reporter: the guys are able to film a few decent eruptions, but not the shot they're after. we have no way to predict just how violent each eruption will be. so, what is the safety plan there? >> there isn't one. >> reporter: there isn't one. >> sort of luck plan. you're on an active volcano.

the safest thing to do would be not to be there at all. >> reporter: it's not just the lava that worries me. the terrain is unforgiving. the elements extreme. and when brad and jeff are distracted, molly falls on jagged rocks, injuring her elbow. >> molly was behind us while we were talking and she slipped on a rock. it only halls, what, 20 centimeters behind me. yeah. she needed dad, and there was an oh -- moment. oh, god, this is the first night. >> reporter: the night gets worse. we've had a major rainstorm at night. we've had a few really big explosions. but the rain is really causing huge problems right now. tent is basically collapsing. >> at the same time, we realized that the sea has started to invade our camp to the point that the waves are crashing so close, coming in and hurting us. it was kind of like hell.

>> reporter: we're trapped between an erupting volcano and swelling seas. at this rate, i'm not even sure how we'll get off this island. coming up, we face the full wra wrath. fast-acting advil

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and we're back now on this christmas eve, not in a winter wonderland, but inside an explosive volcano. even the locals keep their distance. but crazy or not, we're going right in, with rain pouring down from below and lava bubbling up from below. our team will not be deferred from the quest to capture the staggering beauty few others will ever see. here again is abc's gloria riviera.

>> reporter: i'm in the heart of the pacific ring of fire with a trio of danger-loving volcano hunters. look at that. including 11-year-old molly ambrose. these photographers in pursuit of the ultimate shot. they've led me to a remote, uninhablted e ee eed island, ch one very angry volcano. we only have two nights here, and we barely survived the first, battling waves and rain. come morning, the tide is threatening to overtake camp. instead of filming, they're scrambling to build a barrier. >> it's still quite sore. >> reporter: and molly is still a little shaken up. >> sometimes i get a bit scared, but dad says the good thing is, when you're scared, it's because you're thinking about all the dangers. >> reporter: right about now, her dad's mostly scared because thousands of dollars are on the line and he still hasn't

captured the shot. they are racing against time. >> we've pretty much lost half the day just waiting for the weather to start clearing. ideally, there's so many other positions we want to be in. >> reporter: getting any closer by boat is out of the question. >> the money shot's doing something ridiculous on camera that doesn't get you killed. >> reporter: now the locals are saying that maybe the mountain is mad at us. we didn't make any offering. >> well, kill a chicken. >> reporter: kill a chicken? remember this poor soul? well, desperate times -- >> so, this chicken actually we would like to sacrifice. >> reporter: our guides hope this offering will appease the mountain and our luck will change. call it coincidence, but after a few hours, the weather improves. we set out on an expedition to get even closer to the eruption. i mean, i can't believe how close we are. that is insane.

the mountain, it seems, was expecting us. >> it's very beautiful. but it can kill you. >> reporter: it can kill you. >> yeah. >> reporter: but the real show happens after dark. so, we made it close, but we just didn't get the explosion we wanted, so, we have to move positions. now we're hiking at night, much harder, to try to get a better angle. holy -- oh, my god. that is amazing. you can see all those rocks, those lava boulders coming down that chute. sounds like thunder, fireworks, an airplane taking off, all at once. that is a fireworks display that only mother nature can do. >> the ones that you feel before you hear, they're the ones that you think, god, i hope the

mountain is happy with us. >> reporter: as the night wares on and the rest of us go to sleep, brad's pursuit borders on obsession. i think i've got everything i need but you will always want one more. done. i've done it now. >> reporter: but was it worth the risk? especially for molly? you're talking about a place that's unpredictable, there are no guarantees. if things go wrong, they could go very wrong. and you're taking your daughter to those places. >> i think the journey is almost more of a risk. just crossing the road, jumping in the car, driving. >> reporter: i don't know that people will buy that. i don't know. >> well, to me, she's the most valuable thing in the world, so, i wouldn't want to put her in a place where i'm not comfortable being. she also balances me out. by having her with me, i probably didn't push it as much as what i may have. >> reporter: brad and jeff court danger, but for half a billion

people living in the shadow of she's slumbering giants, volcanoes are a constant threat. >> it's the ultimate life-giver and life-taker on this planet. >> reporter: right now, two major eruptions are happening, one in iceland, one in the philippines. volcano hunters are more than just thrill seekers. guys like jeff and brad actually spend more time on volcanoes than most scientists. and their images are clues that help us piece together the mystery of these natural wonders. potentially saving lives. after two hellish days on this island, i'm eager to leave. but not molly. >> it was really cool staying the night and watching the eruption. so, i wouldn't mind staying here another night. >> reporter: brad's thirst for adventure must be hereditary. what do you want to be when you grow up? >> i just really want to follow

dad's footsteps. >> reporter: for this father and daughter team, a trip that took us all to our very limits but brought them even closer together. >> the one constant we have is time and it keeps passing. sooner or later, she won't need me anymore. >> i will always need you. and i'll always love you. it's good to spend time with him. >> reporter: even if it means it has to be on a volcano? >> yeah. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm gloria riviera in indonesia. >> our thanks to gloria fror tht incredib incredible report from the ring of fire. we'll be right back. and the winner of this year's superstar... (coughs) coughing can really be disruptive. with a record breaking fifty million votes, your superstar is... that's why there's delsym. delsym helps silence coughs for a full 12 hours with an advanced time release formula for all day or all night relief.

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we want to leave you tonight with something very important to all of us. a look at the people here who help bring you "nightline" throughout the year. merry christmas.

it's thehristmas season, that one time of year when everybody stops everything they're doing to think for one moment about the most important event in human history, that moment when god entered human history as one of us. and here at the spencerville seventh-day adventist church,

people are gathering to talk about that one event, just as people have for thousands of years, gathered to study that event. i hope you'll join us inside. you can see i still have to go get ready for this event, so i'm going to go and get changed. you go on inside, and i'll join you in just a moment. so, let's see if we have some musicians who are ready to go. are you kids excited? all: yeah! [ cheers and applause ] all right, let's go inside. come on with us. announcer: "peace on earth," featuring shawn and jean boonstra, with musical guest christine wollmann, the king's heralds, the adventist children's chorus, and a special feature by bill knott.