I'm no grease fire expert but something about all this paranoia over grease fires due to the ash system doesn't make sense to me. So i did a bit of quick googling. From what i can see, grease and oil fires don't start at the liquid phase. Once the liquid grease/oil reaches a boiling point it releases vapour. The vapour is what ignites. This temperature is often well above the smoke point of the grease/oil.
So in order for the grease/oil in the tray to ignite you would need a few conditions. The grease/oil would have to be well over 400F (often 600F). Secondly an ember would have to fall into the grease, ignite the oil and continue to smolder to maintain ignition as the fire won't continue to burn at that temperature without sustained ignition source. The oil/grease would have to be even hotter than 600F for sustained ignition.
I see a number of problem reaching this scenario. First i don't think that the oil in the tray would ever reach that temp. It would be worth checking. Second, if an ember or even a fully ignited smoldering pellet fell into a pool of oil and grease, would it not immediately be suffocated and extinguished thereby removing the source of ignition? If it were so easy for grease to ignite in a pellet grill, every bit of grease on every surface in ever pellet grill on the market would be constant igniting from ash falling on grease on the deflector shield.
I'm not saying its impossible or my logic above is complete or sound, it just doesn't seem to me that this product is any more or less dangerous than other pellet grills.
This is one of the articles i read.
Here are some facts about grease fires in the kitchen which will bring home to you just how dangerous being careless with cooking oils can be. I am going to provide you with a lot of in-depth information about cooking fires. The answer to the question posed in the title cannot be answered in a few s
culinarylore.com