Is this normal flame for heat exchanger?
I came home today and the house had a bit of an odd smell. The rooms that had the least airflow smelt the worst. Luckily today is sunny a a bit warmer than usual so I could open some windows. Eventually I found the smell was coming from the heat registers. My first google tells me could be a broken heat exchange. So I ran the furnace to take a look and see if the flames looked off. They look good and blue to me, only there is some glowing orange pieces down the tubes. Once the furnace was off I took another look and saw some red flakes where the orange glow was. Running the furnace again and the smell seems to be slowly dissipating. Checked the filter and it is clean. Air intake is open to basement air (not ideal) and the exhaust goes outside and was blowing fine. Any ideas if the glowing things are causing the smell, or if the heat exchanger is cooked?