A 17-year-old boy has received serious burns to his legs after he tried to take down a steel cable placed across a road in Willetton in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Heath Prince was driving north on Pinetree Gully road at 12.10am when he saw the thick metal wire stretching across the road near Panamuna Drive.

The burns sustained by the boy.

He applied his brakes heavily, but still made slight contact with the cable.

When Heath got out of his car, he noticed the cable was stretched between a power pole and a no standing sign and began to try to take it down.