wrote in message
...
First of all, to melt a wire or connector, there must be an overload.
Unless the charger went overvoltage it is not at fault. check what you
were charging and its cable.

To quote a paragraph from the OP;

"When I pulled it off the iPad, it was noticeably extremely hot,
but it doesn't seem to have damaged the iPad (AFAIK)."

Seems to indicate the iPad was working (and apparently undamaged) - and
since the device got hot, a short in the cable isn't that likely.

Maybe mis-wired cable reversing the polarity, or regulation fault in the
charger.