A family had a lucky escape after a charging iPhone caught fire during the night while they slept - but fortunately only burned the countertop.

Security camera footage caught the moment the 2010 phone exploded on the kitchen counter.

Jennifer Leisgang and her family, from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, were asleep during the blaze that lit up their kitchen and charred their countertop.

In a Facebook post, she warned other families in hopes to prevent this from happening to others and potentially suffering an even worse fate.

"We were extremely lucky to avoid a house fire," she said.

The "vintage" iPhone was given to their kids for something to use for watching videos.

Jennifer added: "Our kids were charging our old iPhone 4 with the Apple charger last night and it exploded and caught on fire in our kitchen while we were sleeping.

"Luckily we had just cleaned off the counter yesterday as it usually has lots of school books and papers in that area.

"There were small pieces of the phone and black soot all over the counter this morning."

Jennifer said she contacted Apple in regard to the incident but failed to get a decent explanation.

She said: "Their verbal response, and I am paraphrasing because I did not write it all down, was that my device was vintage and they don’t expect their clients to be using a phone that old."

The footage was filmed on January 19.