CFL Bulb Failure
That smoking smell coming from your bulb is telling you it’s time to remove it and replace it.
I have not had one catch fire, but I have done some exploratory surgery, and cut the base open on a few bulbs that were either making sparking sounds, or were dark brown, or, stopped working.
The dark brown around the base where the bulb tube enters the base seems to be an aging of the plastic. I have not seen direct heat damage there.
The sparking – now that indicates a problem.
I recently cut open a CFL that was cutting on and off, and was surprised to see an arcing wire.
When the bulb stops working, pull it from the fixture.
