Fire!

[Lumpy]

Was on the last 10 minutes of 2 racks of ribs using the 3-2-1 method. Have been doing the same for years, except this time with my new Traeger I thought I would jack the temp up from 225 to 400 to get some crispy meat.
The Traeger temp rises are fantastic. With my Bradley’s it would take 30 minutes to do the same.
5 minutes later smoke was coming out of the drip bucket hole like a locomotive. When I opened the cover the grill caught on fire. 3 foot flames where dancing off the drip tray and grill. Stupid me, I forgot about the drip pan being covered in grease.
By the time I got the fire extinguisher, my frog mats had melted and the foil over the drip pan was all but burnt up.
2 shots from the extinguisher and it was all out.
I got lucky and there was no damage other than my ego for being so stupid.

Someone was watching me today.
Brisket tomorrow.

 

[primeone]

Wow, I'm glad to hear it wasn't any worse. Do you know if there is any damage to the grill?

 

[Wulfenite]

I've had a couple fires in my grill. Usually doing a reverse sear after I'd done somethink like ribs or brisket that left a lot of fat and bbq sauce behind. More cleaning obviously. I've also had an auger tube fire. That's exciting.

 

[Beaser]

Great to see another neighbour Lumpy! I enjoy my Ironwood for smoking and finishing foods that don't require a high sear temp. It's not worth the tedious cleanup, I'd rather fire up my Weber. In fact my old Junior did a better job of searing without the flame thrower. If Traeger stopped hiding from the consumers, they could address these issues. The flame shield on the D2's is nowhere as effective as the heavy steel unit on the non D2 line.You can call every day for months and never reach anyone in product development, R&D or whatever they want to call it.

I will agree that the D2 grills on super smoke can put out tasty food that's unrivalled. If I do burgers I'll make sure I have clean foil on the drip pan and no crud in the grease run off. Most days I'll just fire up the weber.

CampWhatnot has a unique ability of rolling with the punches. I get myself all torqued outta shape and he just fixes the issue. The minute you call the Big House with an issue you're setting yourself up.

Edit: I'm waiting until the issues get worked out until I try high temperature cooks again. Just looking at the fire box you can clearly see the issues. The flame shield should be reworked. The older heavy steel flame shield worked well. It's just a matter of Traeger getting their $h*t together .