The wire didn't coin the term. Burners have been burners for... well, I've been familiar with it since the 80s, so at least 3 decades now.

What a great show. And interestingly, despite being fictional, the point where the dealers failed was the collection of the phones - just the issue discussed above. I recall that phones were supposed to be bought from stores all over the place, but a lazy gang member kept getting all of them from one source.

That was the case, but it got worse. Lester and McNulty set him up with a great deal on the phones.

While I haven't heard the term burner phone outside of The Wire, I assumed it had been a real term since the writers were so close to these subjects. What I meant (more precisely) was that, from my perspective, The Wire popularized the term for a broader, non-burner purchasing audience.

Hah, no. Myself and my partner both work in the telephony industry, and are familiar with the name 'burner phone' (sounds kind of cool, usually refers to those spy phones that get thrown away in movies).