Three possibilities:
1) Gas leak
2) Meth lab blows up (as you indicate)
3) Or, depending on the occupants, homemade bomb factory goes kaboom
While options 1 and 2 are more likely, you can’t rule out #3, either.
I live close to the area. Low income housing. Mostly Hispanic. Mostly illegal.
Is Bill Ayers in town?
His Weathermen group blew up a building while constructing a bomb.
If it turns out to be #3, then there will be weeks of discussion about “motives” and whether or when the occupants were “radicalized”.
“Work accident”
Gets me to thinking... Just as the discovery of the atom led to both nuclear power and the nuclear bomb, I’m wondering if some could literally produce portable “meth labs” that were actually highly powerful and incendiary bombs. i.e. create the portable meth lab with the express purpose for it to blow up, rather than actually produce drugs.
My first thoughts were your #2 and #3. Another possibility, oxygen in use and person using open flame.