HOT! Ex 4 caught fire

[PatrickB]

My smokefire sent a message that the temperature was dropping. I was cooking at 325 and it had dropped to 225. I moved the pellets around and the next time I checked the grill, it was smoking like crazy. As I approached it, there was a small explosion inside the grill and the lid lifted a bit and then slammed down. The grill was now on fire and took a fire extinguisher to put out.

I’ve got to return this Grill as this low temperature issue has now occurred 3 times, but this time it ended in a fire.

When I checked the burn pot after the fire was put out, it was full of pellets. I throughly cleaned the grill prior to this cook and had a drip pan under the salmon I was cooking.

After the fire settled, I noted that the fire pot was completely full of charred pellets and unburned pellets were outside the burn pot as well. It appears that the unit started dumping pellets faster than they could burn.

I really liked the grill and hate to start over, but I can’t trust this not to catch fire on me.

 

[Goneincognito]

Did you remove the guard as we advised in your other post?
What pellets are you using?
Have you ensured the burnpot is together correctly?

Have you spoken to Weber about this at all?
What was their reply if you have?

 

[PatrickB]

Did you remove the guard as we advised in your other post?
What pellets are you using?
Have you ensured the burnpot is together correctly?

Have you spoken to Weber about this at all?
What was their reply if you have?

I’m calling Weber in the morning. This just happened a few hours ago. I was using Weber Pellets. I did remove the grate. The burn pot hasn’t been touched since the previous cools that I did and it seemed to function fine then. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow. It’s a mess out there right now since a fire extinguisher was needed.

 

[Goneincognito]

I’m calling Weber in the morning. This just happened a few hours ago. I was using Weber Pellets. I did remove the grate. The burn pot hasn’t been touched since the previous cools that I did and it seemed to function fine then. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow. It’s a mess out there right now since a fire extinguisher was needed.

Put up a clear photo of the empty burn put when you can so we cab check its all good.

How long into the cook did this happen?

 

[JpsBBQ]

Trying to figure out what exploded? Smoldering pellets?

 

[Goneincognito]

No "explosion" just a pellet fire.

 

[JpsBBQ]

He said “small explosion “ lifted the lid”?

 

[Goneincognito]

Apparently but could be the whole grease fire when its just a flare up thing again. Large fire no doubt but I'm sceptical about an "explosion". I don't doubt for a second that something is going wrong. Just need to work out the cause and why its happening so often to them.

 

[bbqking]

I would think that with a small explosion, the burn pot, along with other things might be askew. Sorry for your troubles. Definitely suggest contacting Weber. I’m glad I dont have to clean up the mess…the joys of our beloved SmokeFire experiences..

 

[PatrickB]

Put up a clear photo of the empty burn put when you can so we cab check its all good.

How long into the cook did this happen?

 

[PatrickB]

I had been cooking for about 30 minutes. I’ve cleaned the unit up and am trying to recreate the issue now .

 

[Don D.]

Did you have a lot of grease in the grease pan , looks like the fire is coming from under pellet pile...

 

[Hood33]

 

[PatrickB]

Photo of issue, Once the low fuel notice comes on and then more pellets are added, the glow plug seems to shut off, but the pellets continue to dump, then when the glow plug turns back on….Fire!

Did you have a lot of grease in the grease pan , looks like the fire is coming from under pellet pile...

no grease. Grill was very clean. It seems to be a software issue triggered by low pellets. When new pellets are added, it dumps to many pellets in the pot without the glow plug being on. Then when the glow plug comes on, there’s too much fuel in the pot.

 

[Goneincognito]

Classic flame out issue..
The glow plug will not come back on after the initial start up.