Neighbor remodeling, so I've been using mostly dimensional lumbar that he gave me so far this season. Doesn't burn much hotter than regular cord wood that I've noticed, though it certainly doesn't burn for very long. Today put some wood on hot coals, turned the air down almost immediately. Checked the temp and was getting 800 on the cook plate, 600's behind that (normal for this stove). Went to drop the kid off, came back 15 min later. Now temp with my (ahem) high quality HF IR thermo is reading "HI" at the cook plate, and over 1k EVERYWHERE else on the stove (the sides NEVER get above 500). The mantle above the stove (where I was resting my hand) is 800'. Nothing glowing. The stove was already 1.5 hours into its burn and had nice lazy flames going (normally it's 2 hours max till reload). Hmm. Pretty damn nervous, but nothing SEEMED that hot. Not sure what to do at that point. Tried to get to my key damper, and realized that it is damn near impossible to get to when the stove is hot. Decided to take 5 and see what the temps did. In 5 minutes, the temps were now reading 700's on the cook plate and 500's elsewhere. So I guess thermo malfunction, but weird and scary.