We have "blow shit up" nights while camped on the banks of the Murray River where we dig a hole in the sand on a beach away from the camp site and fill the hole with 20 shovels full of red hot coals from the main fire, then place a full butane can nozzle down and lean it slightly towards the camp site direction.
It takes about 90secs for the can to blow which is a long time in that heat, the explosion empties the hole and spreads the coals in about a 30 meter radius then it takes about 20-30 seconds for the can to come back to earth and land in the camp site.
The point of the story is NOT to encourage anyone to play stupid games like this, but the fact that it requires a lot of heat to blow a can of butane up, the results are not pretty unless it's in a clearing on a beach and looks like a miniature version of an atom bomb, I think the purpose of the butane burner was to heat up kettles and small fry pans etc. but I've seen people use large pans or plates that overhang the entire burner, the area over the bottle holder gets heated up to a point where it causes great expansion from liquid to vapour in the butane can itself, the weakest point in the chain is where the nozzle engages the burner and the rest is history.
If both the burner and can are used correctly with the right sized pot, pan, plate etc. there should be no problem at all as the correct amount of ventilation will reduce heat build-up over the butane can.
