From Facebook. The owner fell asleep.
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Think he’s been asked a few times now what material he was cutting and hasn’t replied to that. I’m going with gasoline soaked rags. I may be wrong. 
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Holy hell. gas soaked rags is right!
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Don’t fall asleep when your laser is running. Luckily nothing else was damaged. Not sure if it is totaled or worth sending for major repairs and how long the repairs will take. Edit to add in details.
Material was Delrin
set for 1000/85 engrave
Total run time yesterday was about 12 hours
Happened at the end of a 7 hour print
Laser gets cleaned daily with Zeiss wipes and sprays
Yes, I was in the room but fell asleep watching Youtube.
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I will say Kuods to him for defending Glowforge on the FB page. He said this was not at all their fault - that it was “totally his for falling asleep.”
This is a very important reminder as to why the direction to always keep eyes on your machine. I also believe it was 7+ hours into a job.
So my suggestion is - if you have a 7 hour job, consider breaking it into several sub-jobs. (I will be following this advice if I ever get into large enough project runs).
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Holy Moleeds!
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7 hrs is a LOOOONG run. wonder what he was engraving into that delrin.
not sure why he thought it was more flame resistant.
and later on, he said:
I was engraving Delrin for embossing plates used in leather working. I had a sheet of 20 2"x1" stamps.
i probably would have broken those up into smaller chunks of shorter runs, too.
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Yikes, when I tried Delrin it flamed like crazy!
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Eeep! Hate to see those happen! 
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I’m glad the smoke didn’t injure him. That really sucks.
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Thanks for posting this. We all get a bit complacent with equipment of any sort once we have an experience base. This reminds me to never assume that just because nothing has ever flamed up on me yet, that that will always be the case.
We have very small fires whenever we are 'Forging. That’s OK, big fires = bad.
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Poor guy. Every time I see one of my first thought is how well the fire was contained. Losing several thousands on a machine is noting compared to losing your home (or life).
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That is brutal
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Ugh. 7 HOURS. Nope.
Glad he’s OK, but that machine… 
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I can’t imagine that as anything but totaled…it would be a miracle.
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7 hours? I thought you couldn’t have a print that long? Honestly, I can imagine that job. THe settings must have been super slow and very high LPI, plus the whole 500x300 are must have been invloved. I am glad nobosy was hurt! Be vigilant!
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I have had many 7+hr long prints, I do not think there is a time limit or at least i have not found it yet.
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Update on the verdict from Glowforge;
"So, some updated info on our dearly departed laser. Once the glass, soot and fire extinguisher dust is cleaned it actually does not look very bad. I took a ton of photos as requested by GF.
GF actually says that it can be fixed. Glow Forge has been really great about working with us. They think they can repair it. So it will be going out most likely tomorrow. If they end up not being able to fix it, they will give us a credit towards a new machine. Way more then they legally needed to provide."
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To me, and perhaps I’m biased and not really looking at empirical data, but I think we keep seeing these stories about GF and their response. And to me that’s a huge sign of a well maturing company who focuses on not only making a really kick ass solid product, but also takes care of their customers.
Yes support can be delayed or slower than expected sometimes, but IMO it’s the response and care they’re putting into all manner of things like this. Dan and company can be proud of what they built!!!
Just please, God, don’t let them sell the company. A bigger fish will kill this product.
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I very much agree. I’m sure that ‘speed’ of resolution matters more to folks who are using theirs for business, but for my own personal feelings…I think quality of customer care is more important than speed.
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