Follow my story, its sort've complicated.
I put new gaskets on lid on my hopper. And my first cook was gonna be a slab of ribs. I took an 8 " split of hickory and split again, till it was maybe 2" X 2 " , and I had two them. I stood one on end in the hopper and filled in around it with B&B charcoal. Then I put the other split on top of the first split and filled in around that one.
So ya got that picture, there's basically a 16" split of hickory, that's 2 X 2 running up the middle of the hopper surrounded by B&B charcoal.
Well, I fire up the MB 560, and my hopper lid is leaking like crazy. Don't ask me about it, just accept that it was leaking, I think this is no good, I've got to shut it down. So I put the blades in , shut it down and it does not put the coals out.
So what do I do, do I let this entire hopper of charcoal just burn up slowly, or do I start digging out the charcoal to salvage what I can. I get some tongs and start digging it out.
And what I find inside the hopper, is that the fire had not traveled up the hopper very far in the charcoal, but those two hickory splits were completely burnt. The fire traveled up the wood far faster than the charcoal.
Moral of this story ......... there's not a moral, either leave the factory gasket on your hopper or do a better job of replacing it, and don't listen to Tom Horsman.