A five-year-old boy was rescued from a burning apartment block in Thailand.

Footage shows three brave firefighters assisting the boy out of a third-floor balcony on a mobile crane in Pattaya on February 11.

Frantic residents fled the four-storey building when thick smoke entered their rooms after dinner.

The blaze had started on the ground floor, trapping most of the upper floor residents who only had their balconies as an escape route.

The youngster, along with their neighbours, was with his mother shouting for help when the firefighters arrived.

The rescue team used a crane to take the residents one at a time while the others used ropes to climb down from their rooms.

Fire officers are now investigating the cause of the fire but no one was reported to have been seriously injured.

All of the affected residents, including the boy and his mother, were given health checks by paramedics waiting outside the burning building.

One of the residents said the fire may have started inside a staircase storage where an abandoned gas stove was hidden.

He said: ‘I was sleeping when shouting neighbours woke me up. They were saying something about a burning stove under the stairs, then the smoke had covered the place.’

The fire was declared out after half an hour and investigations are still ongoing.