This was the hellish scene as a Thai woman watched 10ft-high flames burning through trees a few steps away from her home.

Mot Aoraphan heard cracking sounds outside her house in Sa Kaeo province, Thailand, on January 17 evening so she went out to check.

She walked outside and found that her neighbour had burned the empty sugarcane stalks in his field making it appear like a tall wildfire was ravaging the area.

Footage shows the inferno blazing a few metres away from Mot's house while a pet dog watched beside her on the front porch. Cinders and clouds of smoke could also be seen flying over the burning field.

She said: 'All my time growing up, the neighbour always set fire to the crops like this. No wonder the air is so polluted. I just hope they inform us so we don't get surprised everytime.'

The controlled fire was out after almost an hour of burning. The farmer neighbour reportedly burned the field to prepare for planting a new season of crops. No one was reported hurt nor properties damaged in the incident.

Researchers blame agricultural burning for soaring levels of air pollution in Thailand. The process known as 'slash and burn' is used by farmers as a cheap way of clearing their land of waste crops each year.

However, researchers found that smog - caused by high levels of harmful PM 2.5 particles in the air - is at its worst in the country when farmers burn waste crops to cheaply clear their land between late October and April.

The seasonal lack of wind and rain, combined with a winter low-pressure system in which cold air is trapped closer to the ground by warm air above – prevent the pollution from being dispersed naturally.

The Thai government has been criticised for failing to tackle the country’s air pollution crisis, which worsened in 2019 leading to large numbers of people suffering from respiratory problems.