Man I am full of questions. Yesterday while using my small rivet forge out side I had about 5 blower fires. It was windy out and it did it every time I added fresh coal and then stopped turning the blower handle. This may be related to my earlier coal dust problems but I figure I would check with everyone else to see what causes this as I do not recall having this problem before. thanks dave m

The gasses produced by burning coal are explosive; especially if you have added water to it, (running steam over hot coke was a way they used to produce gas for gas lights back before NG).

One way to help avoid it is to have the blower turning slowly as you add the fresh fuel on.

Generally it's not to bad for a blower but an old great bellows can actually hold enough "backed up gas" to blow it apart explosively.