I had to go to shops and ask them not to sell him matches

Anonymous mother

"Mam and Dad were in there there but I am not sure what they think.

"I will not carry on now because it is dangerous, you can kill somebody." he added.

The boy's mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: "I have had to have smoke alarms in every room in the house and I had to go to shops and ask them not to sell him matches.

"He has had a lot of problems, but the firefighters have taken him into the smoke chambers and shown him the dangers."

Terry was an arsonist as a six-year-old

The project to rehabilitate young arsonists receives funding from a body set up by the Home Office.

Jane Milne, chief executive of the Arson Prevention Bureau, said: "It is now widely recognised that the partnership approach is the way forward in tackling this crime."

Terry, another young arsonist, was also six when he began starting fires.

He said:"I was just little when I started.

'Just for fun'

"I saw fires on telly and I picked up some matches just for fun and now I set about three fires a day, sometimes more - just because I am bored."

Educational psychologist Andrew Muckley said: "Fires can burn the angry feelings away and many adult arsonists simply have to have at least a fire a day to burn away the angry or guilt feelings."

The cost of arson nationally is conservatively estimated at �1.3 bn a year.

The Fire Service says that in the last 10 years there have been about 1.7 million arsons in the UK, resulting in 22,000 injuries and 1,100 deaths.

Since 1986 the number of deliberate fires has increased year upon year.