The blaze from the explosion late Monday collapsed a bedroom roof where the girls were reportedly trying out hairstyles for holiday parties using hair-curling tongs heated by a small butane canister, The Times of London said. The girls rushed from the home with clothes on fire.

"Looking at the state of the building, it is amazing that anyone got out alive," local councilor John Jenkins told The Times. "It's a Christmas miracle that the girls survived."

Sisters Anya and Kira Evans and two friends, Nadine Fardon and Kimberly Patterson, all ages 14 or 15, were undergoing treatment at a hospital burn unit.