A man who only wanted to get rid of unwanted pests has managed to burn down his home with a blowtorch, reports the Independent.

Officials in Tucson, Arizona, say that they responded to reports of smoke and flames coming from a mobile home in the Arizona city where a man had been using a blowtorch to remove spiderwebs from underneath his mobile home.

The fire department said that they had arrived to discover that an elderly woman had been removed from the blaze by her son and some neighbours. She had sustained minor injuries while being carried out, but she was not reportedly injured severely by the fires.

The Independent reports it took eleven minutes for the 23 firefighters who responded to put out the blaze in the mobile home.

There were no other injuries reported aside from those of the elderly woman who was carried out.

The total sustained damages to the mobile home from the fire, which is still being investigated by officials, is yet to be determined by investigators.

The Red Cross has stepped up to help out two residents who have been displaced by the fire.