Sounds like someting popped and fried a TIM pad?
I am using these, thickness 1 mm, on EVGA 780 SC, they work very well:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-001-JP
Yeah it must have had a flame because the block has heat tint now.
It looks like I need 1mm for the VRM area and 0.5mm for the RAM, I am guessing 1mm will be ok on the RAM so I might get this.
Flames on the card and it still works? Are the lightenings bullet proof too?