Interesting that this post appeared today.
Yesterday,I had a phone conversation from a couple of cooks,experienced on multiple cookers,looking to move up in size/volume,use for business applications,seeking well insulated cooker,be trouble free,have a minimal learning curve for multiple operators.
They had followed the forum ,but never actually seen/been hands on with an FEC 100.
I invited them to the house,where I have multiple models setting under their covers.
As they removed the covers,I anticipated questions about temp settings,cooking loads,temp min/max,transport,etc.
While these all were intelligently discussed,the first question was about the fires they read about.
I offered that I was a poor choice to cover these,since in over a half a dozen years,from countless models, going back to pre Cookshack days of Eddy's prototypes,cooking all over the South and Florida[which looks like an FEC trade show with the volume around here] I had arrived at a cookoff once,where someone had experienced an internal fire and burned the internal gasket on the door, the day before.
This was my only experience.
I shared that the team would travel 1500 miles roundtrip,spend a couple thousand on the comp,and had such confidence that we loaded the big meats about 8-9 PM,went to the motel for the night,came back for breakfast and in time to get ribs ready to go on the cooker.
Eddy taught us that and it has worked great.
My guests and I went thru the cookers and speculated how a grease fire might be created,and that ended the discussion ,so we got on to the regular cooking tips.
I'm sure fire might have been mentioned by cooks at comps,but I can't personally ever recall it coming up.
I am not claiming there has never been a fire,just like all cookers,but I have not had the experience.