A teenager was badly burned this afternoon when he set himself on fire as he tried to make popcorn at his home in Wolverhampton.

Neighbours ran to help 14-year-old Michael Taylor  before the air ambulance was scrambled to take the youngster to hospital. Witnesses described how the schoolboy ran out of the house in Low Hill before a neighbour hosed him down.

Mick Fisher, aged 56, who works for Enterprise Water, said: “I was working out the back cleaning out the guttering when I heard screaming and somebody shouting: ‘He’s on fire’.

The father-of-three said: “I knew we had to put it out so I grabbed the hose. As I held the hose on him, I could see his skin was peeling. He wasn’t on fire by that stage.”

Michael’s brothers Luke and Craig aged 17 and 14, who were in the Second Avenue house when the accident happened, managed to escape harm.

Firefighters from Fallings Park and Wolverhampton were called at around 12.30pm and police sealed off the scene.

Michael, a pupil at nearby Our Lady & St Chad Catholic Sports College, was airlifted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Mother Wendy, aged 40, rushed home from work as a chef at a city care home.

She was too upset to comment but her mother, Christine Povey, aged 62, of The Square, All Saints, said: “We don’t know what was happening but we believe Michael may have been making popcorn in the kitchen.

“Everybody just had to get out very quickly. We’re very worried about him.”

Neighbour Marlene Lambeth said: “For such a congested residential area, it was very impressive that the air ambulance was able to land here so quickly.”

Fire station watch commander Mike Green praised Mr Fisher for hosing the boy down saying: “This was exactly the right thing to do.”