The world-famous Mount Mayon in Legazpi City glowed beautifully once again when lava fountained at its crater four times late Wednesday night, seemingly putting up a good show as a gift to tourists and residents of Albay this Christmas Day.

In its latest bulletin, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) reported that Mayon had a dramatic series of lava fountaining that reached a maximum height of 500 meters from the crater at exactly 11:12, 11:14, 11:20 and 11:32 p.m. on Wednesday.

Jimmy Sincioco, officer-in-charge of Phivolcs’ Volcano Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division, explained that the throwing of incandescent lava up in the air, which looked like a sparkling red inverted broom over the midnight sky, indicated volatile pressure of gas inside the perfect-coned volcano.

"There are no pyroclastic materials that can flow from these fountains of lava. We can all be assured that this is not dangerous," Sincioco told the Manila Bulletin.

This is the second time that Mayon had a fountaining of lava after the same volcanic activity first drew tourists to Albay province to see the beauty of the world-renowned volcano last week.

But the volcanologist noted that a lava fountaining also indicates imminent explosive eruption just like what happened in 2000 and 2001.

Nine years ago, Mayon also had fountains of lava that lasted for hours which intensified before finally exploding, producing tall eruption columns and pyroclastic flow, Sincioco said.

He added that the fountains of lava are usually followed by taller eruption columns during minor explosions accompanied by perceptible earthquakes, harmonic tremors and booming sounds.

He said that seismic activity remained elevated in number and size as the seismic network detected 815 volcanic earthquakes and recorded tremors at maximum deflection until around 4:14pm on Wednesday.

He added that 21 ash explosions were recorded during times of good visibility, with the ash columns reaching heights of up to 1.2 kilometers above the summit.