Chris wrote:

I clean out my lint pretty regular. My wife noticed a burning smell
and smoke coming from the dryer. No noise was made other than a
normal dryer sound. Of course the dryer got shut off and unplugged!
I've been taking it apart and looking at a possible lint plugging, I
have not seen that. Now I'm wondering about components? I've ran the
dryer and I don't hear anything suspicous, the only thing suspicious
is the smoke of course! Something else i noticed was a "fire" went
through the dryer. A fast fire because all the lint i found on the
bottom of the dryer was black on top and grey on the bottom.
do you have a pilot light?? even without one you could still get a
firet from the glow plug or when the burner comes on... i have a sears,
kenmore (same as a whirlpool) according to the repair manuals i had over
the years.... i had to take mine into the back yard and take it apart...
kept blowing the thermal fuse.. it seemed that the lint was wrapped
around some senors and was letting the machine get too hot... thats why
the fuse kept blowing... i took it all apart, took the blower out and
the heater box(the box that goes all the way from the top to the blower
wheel) and found some lint in there trapped.... might be your
problem????