This is crazy so bear with me. I have a light fixture above my front door. I put three small CFL bulbs in it. It has worked well for a long time. Tonite it started to crackle and burn. I shut it off and pulled out the burned up bulbs. The curly bulbs were chock full of dead moths and other bugs. The light itself now no longer works. Is it possible that the build up of dead bugs could have caused the fire and what appears to be a short??
Pull the fixture cover off. The max wattage should be written on a label. Sounds like you maxed out the wattage. The bulb sockets are more than likely fried. Don't use the light, get a new one!!
You didn't max out the wattage using CFL's. Heat from the original bulbs, weather, age and bugs probably all contributed to the problem. Definitely get a new fixture.
Glad you were there to catch it! We were driving by a house one night and I noticed a front porch light fixture on fire, the flames were starting to go up the side of the house! We stopped and banged on the door, but the person that lived there was of course startled and frightened as to why someone was banging on their door at a pretty late hour, but my husband kept telling him - 'your porch light is on fire!' Looked like a bird's nest was the culprit. Finally his neighbor came out (guess he heard us too) and saw it, got his water hose and put it out. The home owner was an older man - he came out then too, and thanked us. Coulda been a bad situation.....
