A South Carolina judge received death threats before her home burnt down in a huge fire, with three members of her family taken to hospital.

Circuit court Judge Diane Goodstein, 69, was out walking her dogs when a blaze broke out at her $1.5m beachfront home in Edisto Beach at around 11.30am on Saturday morning.

Her husband, former state senator Arnold Goodstein, 81, and two other members of her family had to jump out of the upstairs windows to escape the property as it went up in smoke. He is understood to have suffered multiple broken bones.

Footage of the incident shows an inferno engulfing the upper floors of the sprawling house with clouds of black smoke billowing into the air. 

All that remained of the property after the blaze were a series of charred wooden beams and a burnt-out car parked next to it.