A CWMBRAN boy became the hero of the hour when he battled flames to rescue five terrified children from their blazing home.

Neighbour Leighton Griffiths, 15, saved the children aged between four and 15 when their house in The Twinings, Greenmeadow, went up in flames during the early hours of Saturday morning.

Eye-witnesses said the children, who were in the house alone, were screaming "I don't want to die" from the bedroom window as smoke billowed out around them.

It was then Leighton, with help from his stepfather Alan Probert, kicked the back door in but was forced back by the smoke at 2.20am.

Leighton then made his way round the front of the house, picked up a hose pipe connected to a tap in the neighbouring garden and battled his way through the flames.

Once inside, Leighton helped three of the children get out of the window, with the help of Mr Probert and Dennis Griffin, 61 who has a ladder.

Fairwater High School pupil, Tyler Holpin, 15, who also lives on the estate helped to extinguish the flames from outside with the hosepipe, while Leighton carried the other two children out of the house through the front door.

Witnesses to the rescue said the oldest child, the 15-year-old girl, was babysitting the others when the fire broke out.

She ran to a relatives house a couple of minutes away to fetch her parents.

When the distraught pair arrived back at the house, neighbours said the father had to be restrained by police officers who had just arrived on the scene and the mother collapsed from shock.

The first Leighton knew of the blaze was when he heard popping and crackling noises and saw flames coming out of the house windows.

After he had safely rescued all the children, Leighton, who is asthmatic, collapsed and was taken to hospital where he was treated for smoke inhalation, minor burns on his legs and a suspected broken rib from where he fell down the stairs.

Despite his ordeal, the teenager, remained modest about his heroic efforts.

“I just acted on instinct," he said.

"I didn’t need to think about it. All I could think about was the children upstairs.”

Dennis Griffin, and his wife Marilyn, 59, whose terraced home is attached to the Evans’ house, woke up to hear the children screaming for help.

Mr and Mrs Griffin took the children, who were shaking and crying, into their home and wrapped them in blankets until their parents arrived.

She added: “It was terrible. If anything had happened to them I would have gone to pieces.”