There are plenty of references if you will take a minute to do a google search using 'Carbon Monoxide'

Carbon Monoxide gas does NOT burn in and of itself. Hence people die from Carbon monoxide poisoning – they don’t burn up and we don’t hear of people burning up from carbon monoxide fires.

In the egg we wait for the white smoke to turn to the almost clear blueish smoke. The white smoke and or clear bluish smoke is all carbon monoxide which is one byproduct of our carbon (lump), oxygen and heat interacting.

From experience we all know adding air to a smoking fire (in the egg or a camp fire) we ‘fan or blow’ the coals to get the fire to spread. We don’t add carbon monoxide we add oxygen. Some might add more heat but eventually they add oxygen. To cool the egg down we restrict oxygen (shut the fire down somewhat). If one watches the upper vent when we restrict oxygen we will see some smoke begin (carbon monoxide).

Introduce oxygen to heated carbon monoxide (smoke) and you will get a flare up (flashover/flashback) one will also hear a bit of an explosion – a ‘poof’ as it were.

The yellow flame vs blue flame only changes due to the ratio of oxygen, heat & fuel.

Yellow as you say is a cooler flame plume. Blue is a hotter flame plume. Flashover occurs at temps at and above 930° F and the energy produced by the burning/flashback/flashover is a result of heat and or super heat. This is well documented via studies in behalf of the fire departments. A fireman in full protective gear (normal protective gear) only has less than 2 seconds to evacuate in a flashover situation.

To further illustrate the yellow/blue fire plume...

In welding with gas/acetylene one turns on the acetylene and lights the gas. A large yellow (relative low heat) flame begins. Fusing two metals cannot be accomplished until that flame is hotter. With the yellow acetylene flame burning oxygen is slowly introduced to the mixture. The yellow flame with huge amounts of black smoke turns to a clean burning blue flame. The highest heat consideration of heat is at the tip of the blue flame. One can somewhat seem the same affect with a propane or map torch.

Another good every day example is the common gas fireplace logs. Logs which produce yellow flame must be vented or carbon monoxide poisoning will occur. The newer logs which produce a blue flame burn up to 100% of the natural gas and will produce little or no carbon monoxide. Thus no venting is required and is safe to heat a room without risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The newer gas logs have a safety feature with the pilot & gas valve that if something restricts the oxygen ration the fuel supply will shut of and not ignite. The safety feature is to eliminate any possibility of carbon monoxide poising.

In our ‘egg world’, the super heated blue flame will follow any and all oxygen sources available; bottom vent, top chimney (dome vent) bad seal around the gasket, anywhere oxygen can get to the heated lump.

Fire can only be present when there is a proper ration of heat, fuel and oxygen. Carbon monoxide will be produced by the unburned fuel and will have a more or less concentrated depending on the heat, fuel, oxygen ratio.

This is all very easily verified in searching google, in fact take a quick look in widipedia search for flashover. Here is the link to the flashover reference in Wikipedia if you have the interest

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashover

Interesting research and fun discussion… but it is time to get some hands on experience. Off to start up the egg for Sunday dinner.