No, Sue, no scorching of wood. I think Ironraven said there might be some scorching of plywood, and I initially posted that it would scorch wood....but no such thing occurred! Today (I have pictures but haven;t uploaded to photobucket yet) I burned two ounces on a blue paper shop towel. The towel wasn;t even warm underneath the stove immediately after the flame went out. So you can literally hold the stove in the palm of your hand, from start to finish (I mean, as far as bottom temperature goes).