What does it mean when a light bulb catches fire and then explodes?

Question

It happened in my son's upstairs bedroom in his ceiling fan. After witnessing this myself I asked if this had happened before and he told me that one of the bulbs in the bathroom light bar had caught fire but not exploded. He turned the light switch off and the fire went out. Information I would have liked to have know about!

Answer 1

it means that it needs to be replaced. : )

Answer 2

If I had to guess, I'd say that the bulb probably had a lot of dirt and oils on it. When it got hot, the dirt and/or oil ignited. That's just a guess, though. A regular light bulb has very low pressure inside it, so there's not a lot of oxygen to support combustion on the inside (unless there were somehow a leak, which could possibly have resulted in a very vigorous reaction between the super-hot tungsten and the oxygen).

Answer 3

Incandescent bulb were at one time had vacuum around the filament.

Depending on the bulb it had carbon filament or tungsten nickel alloy filament, if vacuum leaks that means air enters the bulb then filament burns up, bulb may explode.

It can cause fire, major or minor or just nothing more, no explosion, just slight blackening, inside the bulb.

Present once have inert gases in it (Argonne is most common), if the leak takes place then same thing happens.

Answer 4

Burning light bulbs is not a common phenomenon. For it to happen twice in your house means there is something odd going on. My guess: either your wiring is in really bad shape, or your son has been doing "experiments" on the light bulbs.

Answer 5

Sounds like a power surge. That can happen if you send too much current through the wire. It's only built to handle so much. If it wasn't during a lightening storm, maybe you should get a surge protector - and if it's an installed feature, it's time to call the electrician.