This is the bizarre moment a man set a row of mops on fire at a fuel station in Thailand.

The shirtless local entered the station's storage area and walked over to a rack while staff were tending to customers in Samut Prakan province at 1:30 am on August 13.

He then used a lighter to take several cloth strips from a mop head but unknowingly left behind a small flame that later engulfed the entire rack.

Customers alerted employees to the fire near the women's bathroom. They rushed over with fire extinguishers and brought the blaze under control.

Station manager Maew, 47, filed a report with the police and submitted the CCTV footage as evidence.

Lieutenant colonel Panyaphon Boonsri, Deputy Inspector of the Southern Samrong Police Station, said: 'In the middle of the night, the unidentified man set fire to the cleaning equipment. The floor tiles and walls were partially damaged, and three mops, four rags, three brooms, and three dust pans were destroyed.

'The man may have wanted to use the mop strands as a makeshift belt for his shorts.'

Police are now hunting the suspect, believed to be a homeless man wandering the Soi Wat Maha Wong area. He was described as having a slender physique and a height of around 170 centimetres.

A Burmese pump attendant, 29, said: 'While I was refueling for customers, someone walked over and said that there was a fire behind the women's bathroom. I hurried to look and found that the cleaning equipment storage area had been burnt.

'As for the man who committed the incident, I often see him here because he uses the bathroom on a regular basis. But I did not really pay him any mind before the incident.'

His female co-worker, 19, said she was unfamiliar with the culprit and called the manager to check security cameras when customers alerted her about the fire.