All Herron Taylor wanted was to take a picture.

As the Auburn junior and her boyfriend, Brendan McGowan, sat beside the oak tree on W. Magnolia Ave. at Toomer's Corner shortly after midnight on Sunday, all was right with the world.

"We had rolled the tree earlier in the night and we had hung out downtown for a little bit longer and we were leaving and we were like 'hey look, let's get a picture in front of the tree,'" Taylor said. "It was so pretty completely covered in white."

As a friend backed up to take their picture, he saw a man set some of the toilet paper hanging from the tree on fire behind McGowan and Taylor, who first went towards the fire as another bystander attempted to grab at the flaming toilet paper while McGowan pointed out the man responsible.

"We saw him kind of wandering in underneath the tree, he was alone, wandering in the toilet paper," McGowan said. "As we turned around to take the picture the guy didn't get even the picture. ... He went from the tree after lighting it back to his group of friends like nothing had happened, watching it go up in flame."

What Taylor did next has Auburn fans far and wide calling her a hero because with all due respect to Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Taylor made the biggest stop in Auburn that day.

Surveillance footage shows the Mountain Brook native hurry towards Jochen Wiest, who is facing charges of felony first-degree criminal mischief and desecration of a venerable object for allegedly setting the fire, and confront him.

"I was screaming at him like 'you lit the tree on fire, you lit it on fire,'" Taylor said. "Everyone was more focused on the tree and I had looked at the tree and realized I can't do anything about this; this is out of my control. We saw the guy and he was like, 'oh, no, no.'

"I was already mad at him, of course -- furious. When he was trying to back away from me, get away, that made me more mad. I was like 'nuh-uh, I'm going to get you. You cannot run away. You've got to pay for this.' ... he was putting his hands up like 'whoa,' kind of freaking out that all this was happening. I think he kind of realized that he messed up pretty bad."

Taylor followed Wiest, who she said was wearing an Auburn hat - "obviously he's not a true Auburn fan. ... he wasn't an LSU fan," as he crossed S. College Street and tried to flee the scene.

She filled in the blanks of what happened after they were no longer in frame of the surveillance camera on the northeast side of the intersection.

"I was running right behind him past (BBVA) Compass (bank), that little parking lot right behind there," Taylor said. "I was screaming, 'He lit it on fire, he lit it on fire' and by that point all downtown was lit up from the tree it was just blazing flames. So everyone knew something bad had happened. When I was saying that all these guys kind of realized ... it hit them. A few guys around me came and tackled him to the ground to hold him down."

Wiest went east on Magnolia Ave. towards Moe's Original Bar B Que before eventually being taken to the ground by bystanders.

McGowan said Wiest was kicked in the face and back by those who had surrounded the 29-year-old, whose mugshot appears to show an abrasion on his nose.

Amy A. Brooks, a woman from Chelsea, told AL.com she and her husband were nearby as Wiest was being confronted and she called police, who arrested him for public intoxication and later charged him with desecration of a venerable object.

Taylor isn't sure where the instinct to go after Wiest came from, but Auburn fans are glad she did.

Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs and Alabama Lieutenant Governor Kay Ivey, an Auburn alum, are among the growing list of people thanking Taylor for her actions.

"Your willingness to confront the man and your bravery in pursuing him speak volumes about your character," Ivey wrote in a letter to Taylor. "You are certainly a role model for people everywhere."

McGowan, also a junior at Auburn, still has a hard time believing his girlfriend of five months so fearlessly went after Wiest.

"I would have to say this was not on the agenda for the night," McGowan said. "I knew she was aggressive and I knew she had spunk but boy did I not expect her to go grab him by the shoulder by the corner and then when he shrugged her off and started to run across I was like, 'OK that may be it,' but no she kept going after him. ... I was proud of her. I could not believe that she did that."

Taylor, whose sunglasses were lost amid the ordeal but were later recovered and since returned, hopes Wiest faces whatever punishment the justice system deems fit.

"I just wanted him to have to acknowledge his actions," she said, "and pay for it."