Help with cfl fire hazard

Hi all, today I went to plug in a cfl and it started to smoke out of the socket and I immediately unplugged it and unscrewed it from the socket to find it blackened. It is/ was a 13 watt cfl screwed onto the " walmart" style socket that plugs into a 120 outlet. Luckily i was there when this started to happen coulda been a fire. Could someone please explain to me the cause of this so I can tell if my box is safe to leave alone with lights on as I have multiples of the same style socket and even more powerful cfl's and I don't want to come home to the cops asking me what these chared plants and electrical equipment is lol. any help greatly appreciated, thank you.

you should be fine i have never heard of a cfl catching fire and i am a maintenance man that changes them every day they will blow or maybe half of it will only blow and it will still flicker.... now if you were to plug a brand new bulb in there and it was to blow that means that you have a short somewehre in you wireing which means 2 wires are touching each other that are not supposed to be and that will start a fire!!!!! my recommendation is that you go get a new bulb and plug it in if that works fine you have nothing to worry about.....

Your socket is bad, replace. DO NOT RISK A FIRE! Better yet, replace the whole setup that the bulb was attached to. It's not worth the risk for a few dollars.

Thank you penyajo Im sure the bulb had to be defective it started smoking from the socket where the contacts meet instantly when i turned it on,and actually melted a hole through the metal contact on the bottom of the bulb. The bulb was still working just humming and smoking from the base lol just freaked me out a bit just want to be safe because this is only one of the 20 or so cfls I have in my home and if this is a case of a defective brand I would like to know that so I can steer away from using those. I appreciate your comment. Thank You.

Ledhed said:

Your socket is bad, replace. DO NOT RISK A FIRE! Better yet, replace the whole setup that the bulb was attached to. It's not worth the risk for a few dollars.

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Hey ledhed thanks for stopping in, beleive me i am not risking a fire! Already had a run in with leo because of one a few years ago at a dif location. NOT FUN! The socket is pretty much brand new and had another cfl running in it just fine the day prior it broke so I swapped it out and that happened. I'm thinking it's more the bulb rather than the socket.

I highly doubt it to be the bulb. Get that lampholder out of there. Leaving the house and coming back to a lawn full of ashes is every indoor growers worst nightmare.

I have heard problems of CFL's bought at Walmart the cheap store brand. I think the brand is Globe? or Great Value at Walmart. Stay away from them.

I can find multiple failures of the brand.

Thank you father earth I'm pretty sure it was a defective bulb as Balzac89 has said as well. Thank you Balzac89 you confirmed my thought on defective cfls.