Kate Winslet: 'It's A Miracle No One Died'

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Kate Winslet, her two kids, Sir Richard Branson and 20 plus guests escaped a deadly fire that raged at this private Caribbean island home earlier this week -- now, for the first time, the Oscar winner is speaking out about the scary situation.

"I’m just so glad that everyone is safe. This very easily could not have been the case," she told UK's Mirror Newspaper. "I will never forget Richard placing his arms around my children as we were watching the flames and saying, 'At the end of the day, what you realize is that all that matters is the people you love. Everything else is just stuff. And none of that stuff matters.'"

Winslet's children were heralded as "some of the bravest kids" earlier this week when Branson wrote about the incident on his official website. "Special congratulations and lots of hugs went to Kate Winslet's two beautiful children Mia, 10 and Joe, 7. They were real troopers and two of the bravest kids I've ever come across!"

The fire, which ignited around 4 a.m. on Monday morning, was caused by aggressive wind and lightning, utterly decimating Branson's family home. "It will take some time and it will be a few days before we understand the full extent of what is needed but lots of the talk in the middle of the night turned to what we could build, what would it look like, how could we design something even more beautiful ... like a phoenix something beautiful will rise again from those ashes," he wrote.