Exploding candle forces evacuation of Northeastern dorm

When I was in college in the 70s dorms just weren't dorms without candles. Doing bong hits by bright overhead fluorescent light just doesn't cut it.

If I dust off the old engineering degree, I can give you the gist. Candles work by melting wax by heating up the wax. Heating up wax, or almost any amorphous solid, makes it expand. If you put a candle on a surface that is warm or hot, like a stove, it can heat up the bottom of the candle instead of the open part near the top. This causes the wax at the bottom to expand pressing on the glass containing the candle which is also expanding. If the candle is manufactured by someone with a reputation that would be harmed by their name being associated with exploding candles, you are probably fine, but if you made the candle from a random canning jar or bought it at Discount Dan's House of Half-Priced Candles and Other Waxy Things, eventually the pressure plus the thermal cycling of the glass will cause a fracture and the pressure will cause a modest explosion of hot wax. If the stove happened to be on at the time, well, hot liquid wax is quite flammable.

Flame burning too hot cracks the glass

A defective or damaged tempered glass candle holder is my guess. Pyrex-style glass is under tension and compression, and a tiny crack can lead to catastrophic failure when combined with thermal shock such as direct contact with an open flame or hot molten wax. The static forces that make the glass so strong under normal circumstances get released, the glass shatters, and shards are launched everywhere.

Google "exploding pyrex" for more.