On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:22:40 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

Per Meat Plow:
Might have started out very small
and once the plastic burned enough it made more contaminants that caused
more arcing and so forth.

A vicious cycle... I like it.

That's my guess.

But it begs a question that popped up as soon as I saw the
paddle: are some metals ok tb within a microwave oven?

I'm guessing the metal paddles are alu.

Yeh I've seen stirring devices before. Some metal (don't suppose what
kind matters) can be tolerated as long as there is enough material in the
oven to absorb most of the energy. Not sure because I haven't torn one
apart but I've always assumed there was a bit of foil inside the cooking
side of a microwave popcorn bag to reflect the heat towards the popcorn.