Originally Posted by
BlueMoon
Now that you mention it, I believe the CRJ's have a galley heater (keeps the FA's somewhat warm during boarding with the door open) that is like a small electric heater and fan. (or it is, I don't know much about it, I just know it is there).
That could be a source of something burning. Either dust or something gets in there or it overheats and the breaker doesn't trip. I remember being told that they used to have an issue with the intake of the heater getting blocked by the galley restocking form in between turns because fa's would use a clip on an adjacent cabinet and the paper would get flipped up by a breeze and block the heater intake causing it to overheat.
Either way I would guess you would have some kind of burning smell in this instance.
The electric burner wouldn't produce any CO, it would have to ignite something else in large quantities...dust bunnys wouldn't be enough. Also any accidental combustion would produce a lot of smoke. Only finely tuned devices like engines burning specific fuels can avoid generating smoke.