Tragic accident indeed.
I have a 1937 autobiography by Jim Mollison where he describes that the first thing he did after acquiring any British made plane was change the overhead fuel tank from aluminium to tin. This was prompted after he witnessed a number of pilots survive a hard landing only to be burnt alive because the aluminium fuel tanks ruptured too easily when the flimsy landing gear on those airplanes of that era collapsed. This was back in the days before WWI
The proximity of an avgas fuel tank to passengers and to the engine on an R44 should at least require a secondary saftey system such as a fuel bags.