A young boy was in intensive care with horrific burns last night after he and two friends were caught up in an explosion.

The boys - thought to be two brothers and a friend - were playing in a shed at a house in Stockdale Avenue, Dormanstown, Redcar, when the blast happened.

Although details surrounding the accident remained sketchy last night, it is thought to have been fuelled by cellulose thinners.

Neighbour Paul Pitt was one of the first on the scene and found one of the victims - a 12-year-old - with extensive burns from head to toe.

"When I got there, there was a lad on the floor outside writhing about," he said.

"I have never seen anything like it. His hands were all burned, his face was charred, his lips were quite burned, his hair looked like an upturned hairbrush and his trousers and clothing were burned."

He wrapped the boy, who was shouting and screaming, in a blanket.

Mr Pitt, 33, a special features executive with The Northern Echo, had first checked that the house next to the shed was clear of people and fire, before tending to the injured boys.

A woman resident from the house adjacent to the shed, thought to be the brothers' mother, is understood to have left for work five minutes earlier.

It is thought that normally the boys would have gone to her mother's house.

Last night a police spokesman declined to release the boys' names.

The injured boy, understood to be a pupil at West Redcar School, is in the intensive care unit of Middlesbrough General Hospital, his condition described as stable.

The eight-year-old, who suffered facial burns, is waiting to see a plastic surgeon and is expected to be detained for two or three days.

The other 12-year-old was last night released after treatment.