Holey smoke! I've never seen anything like this before. Just installed a new and more powerful router in my router table and was testing it using a large bit taking only a moderate cut on a piece of scrap pine. As I'm running it through, I suddenly notice that the chips and dust lodged around the dust port are glowing red. I immediately shut everything down and grab a fire extinguisher and run to the dust collector where I expect a major conflagration or even dust explosion. Fortunately that didn't happen.

I've never seen this happen before and the odd thing was that the bit was not burning the workpiece, only the chips. Just wondering if anyone has had this experience and whether it is related only to soft woods like pine, which I never use? All feedback would be appreciated as this is no minor issue.

One other thing I did was, due to the fact that this is a much more powerful router, I reduced the speed from 23,000 to 16,000 RPM. Could that be a factor? I find it very odd that there is virtually no burning on the workpiece yet it set the chips on fire. This event just scares the hell out of me.