A UW-Madison graduate student from Puerto Rico is being treated for serious burns after an attack on New Year's Day in which five family members died and three were injured when the woman's uncle allegedly set fire to a room with a blowtorch during a family gathering.

Patricia Sanchez Vazquez, 24, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Bacteriology, suffered burns during the attack in Florida, Puerto Rico. Bacteriology department chair Richard Gourse said Thursday that Sanchez Vazquez continues to improve at a Puerto Rico hospital. Her father also is recovering, but Sanchez Vazquez's mother remains in an induced coma, Gourse said.

Sanchez Vazquez lost her brother, his fiance, her sister, her grandmother and a cousin in Saturday's attack, Gourse said.

The victims were part of a group of 14 people the man suspected in the attack — Justino Sanchez Diaz, 45 — had invited to the house he shared with his parents and sister for an early New Year's dinner.

Local police said Sanchez Diaz already had doused the walls with gasoline and set canisters with fuel under furniture, including the dining room table. As the group sat down to eat, he came out with a tank of propane gas, doused people with kerosene and set them on fire with a homemade torch, police Lt. Francisco Rosado said.