My father is a geologist. He's been around a few active volcanoes, including the Mt. St. Helens eruption. I'm forwarding this to him, but I'm already pretty certain his assessment of the situation will be the same as mine. That being, this guy is an idiot.
If I remember my elementary schoolyard games, and I think I do, what he did here was fail to step on one of the DARK tiles, because the LIGHT tiles are lava.