Neighbours of a young woman who died in a house fire have told how she was standing on a window ledge screaming for help just moments before she died.

Nearby residents bravely attempted to break into the burning house to save the woman using a cherry picker but were beaten back by the ferocity of the fire.

Paramedics desperately fought to save the woman on her front lawn by giving her CPR for 15 minutes.

The emergency services were first called to the blaze in a house at just after 11.15am on Saturday in Edgell Road in the village of Westbourne near the Hampshire border.

Neighbours said they saw the woman standing at her bedroom window screaming for help as fire began to rip through the upper floor of the semi-detached house.

One of the horrified neighbours wrenched open a ground-floor window and tried walking up the stairs but was overcome by the smoke.

Another neighbour then climbed into the cherry picker on his van |and lifted himself up to bedroom window but was also beaten back by smoke.

The first of the firefighters arrived at 11.30am and battled the flames to bring the woman outside.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate her outside the house but she was declared dead at the scene.

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: “She was standing on a window ledge, arms hanging out, she had her head halfway out of it almost like she was trying to squeeze herself through the window.

“She was screaming for help. She was saying ‘get me out I am going to die’.

“One of the neighbours got into his cherry picker and smashed through the window but smoke was billowing out and he couldn’t see.

"The heat was so intense.

“I tried to go up the stairs then but I just saw smoke and explosions, electrical things were going up.”

The resident said the whole neighbourhood was “absolutely gutted” about the tragic incident.

She added: “She was a lovely, lovely person.

“She was very kind and very friendly.”

Six crews from Havant, Emsworth, Horndean, Chichester and Bognor attended the blaze.

Sussex Police officers also attended the scene.

A force spokesman said: “We are treating the incident as unexplained and are not looking for anybody else in relation to this.”