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Sidoarjo, East Java. A mother and son are fighting for their lives after a natural gas explosion at their home near the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, on Tuesday night.

The victims were identified by police as Purwaningsih and her 22-year-old son, Debi Purbianto, who both suffered burns to 80 percent of their bodies.

The pair were reportedly at home in West Siring village when the blast happened at about 11 p.m. The resulting fire destroyed their home and two others across the street. Five fire trucks were called to the scene, but the fire was so big it took them until 3 a.m. to put it out.

Sidoarjo’s district police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Mohammad Iqbal, said the explosion was believed to have been due to a build-up of methane gas underneath one of the houses.

The Sidoarjo mud volcano, the largest of its kind in the world, has been spewing hot mud and highly flammable methane gas since May 2006.

Although widely blamed on the gas drilling activities of contractor Lapindo Brantas, which is part of the Bakrie Group owned by the family of Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, the company has blamed the disaster on a distant earthquake.

The Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency (BPLS) is also investigating the explosion.

BPLS spokesman Ahmad Kusairi said on Wednesday that the agency suspected the blast was sparked by firecrackers being lit close to a methane leak.

“Purwaningsih’s husband said he’d heard firecrackers going off near the house shortly before the fire,” he said, adding that no one in the house at the time had been smoking or using the stove, thus ruling out any possibility that the fire was ignited from inside the house.

Purwaningsih, meanwhile, said the explosion happened quickly. “I was peeling shallots, then all of a sudden I felt this excruciating heat all over my body,” she said from hospital.

The BPLS also said it had data indicating the methane that caught fire may have been trapped in a fissure beneath one of the houses across from Purwaningsih’s.

Kusairi said seismic readings from 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday showed there had been a slight subsidence of the land beneath the house, which he said could have trapped the methane there.

He also said that the house in question had in 2009 experienced a similar fire, although much smaller.