A British man has suffered severe burns after his iPhone exploded following a fall from his mountain bike.

Gareth Clear's iPhone 6 bore the brunt of the impact when the 36-year-old took a tumble during a ride around Australia's Manly Dam on Sunday afternoon.

He noticed smoke and searing heat coming from his phone seconds before it exploded, melting through his shorts and two layers of skin on his upper right thigh.

Image: Mr Clear suffered severe burns. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful

Mr Clear, who lives in Bondi but is originally from Winchester, Hampshire, needed a skin graft at the burns unit of the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

He told Sky News: "I fell to the side on my bike, the phone was in a rear pocket ... I looked at my right hand side and I just saw smoke coming from the back of my shorts."


Image: He required a skin graft. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful

"There was this intense heat generated from my pocket ... it melted through my shorts and gave me third degree burns in the upper right hand side of my thigh."

Mr Clear said it was a "one in a million chance" that his fall resulted in the lithium battery being pierced.

Image: The damaged iPhone. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful

He told Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper: "I'm 36, I've had a mobile phone for 18 years of my life and for that thing to explode or short circuit and cause it to temporarily ignite.

"I could see the metal bending and all the lithium leaking out of the bottom end."

While the top of his phone is perfectly intact, Mr Clear said the base of the phone looks like "something from a chemical explosion".

Image: Mr Clear is on a drip to stop infection. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful

For now, he is hooked up to a drip to prevent infection of his wound and doctors have said his recovery will take weeks.

Mr Clear said Apple has promised to investigate the incident, although the firm has not commented officially.