Okay, A Little concerned. Cat was on fire????

Sounds like a back puff, opening the air a bit should take care of it. It happens when smoke/gasses build up then ignite.

I had something similar happen last week. Found the fire had died to where it was smoldering and the cat was going crazy eating all the smoke. I tried slowly bypassing to let the cat settle down but then I started getting what appeared to be backdrafts down the flue which combined with the high heat of the cat to ignite all the gases in the firebox. Pretty scary. I got three big puffs like that and then I open the air a bit and the fire started burning normally again.

Lesson for me was not to turn the air down too far when temps are up outside.

nrc said:

Lesson for me was not to turn the air down too far when temps are up outside.

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+1

Yep, a back-puff, a mini-explosion of gas and smoke igniting, which can force a little smoke out of the air intake. I've seen it in other stoves I've had but all I've seen in the Buck is gentler flash-overs that don't force smoke out. How dry is your wood? I think it's more likely to happen with wood that isn't quite dry but can happen with dry wood too. Sometimes it will happen if you have a lot of the load burning when you're ramping the stove up to temp, and then cut the air too much, too soon. Once I close the bypass, I cut the air in several steps, a bit at a time. Flame you saw under the cat was smoke igniting, nothing to worry about.