Paper logs..

[Janne]

You will get a tar problem with super dry wood, if you do not supply enough Oxygen to the fire.

Makers of pitch/tar used this fact with success.
Most people ( including me) do not open the air vent sufficiently. In modern stoves you need a such good supply that the actual fire does not use it all up, but leaves enough for the secondary combustion.

 

[Robson Valley]

That is precisely how a modern wood pellet stove operates with super-dry compressed pellets.
The exhaust blower actually sucks cold intake air up through the burning mass as does the bellows "push" of a blacksmiths forge.

Steam, of course, carbon oxides and a pale brown ash. I estimate the ash to be 2kg for every 275 kg pellets burned.
I have burned 50 tons (100,000lbs) in the last 10 years so I have a good idea how things work out.

Similarly, the fresh pellets are pushed UP into the fire box by an intermittent auger. Backfire is impossible.
The ash then is tipped over the front lip of the fire box. So the stove is self cleaning to some extent.
The brown ash coats everything eventually for poor flow and heat exchange.
Takes an hour to cool down and maybe 30 minutes of fast work to clean out for a re-light.

Dad's newspaper logs were a grand experiment and a heaping failure for mess and carbonized paper.
We had to poke at them like turning a roast to get the blasted things to burn instead of smolder.

 

[spandit]

Stove fans are cheap at Aldi at the moment. My local branch still had a few in stock