Ordinarily, you keep your plane in the air as your top priority, go where you need to go as your second priority, and communicate as your third priority. So ordinarily, I would say that's too far down your list of priorities.

In this case, however, there was a communication at 1:30, ten min. after the transponder was turned off. Once you are on the radio, it makes sense to say "we have a fire" I would think.

You can't say that and not mention the mnemonic!

"Aviate, Navigate, Communicate"

Airplane fires can and have been so fierce, that pilots barely have time to utter a single sentence to ground control after they know they're in trouble and before they lose consciousness. It really is that time critical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592

You cite a source but it doesn't really back up your claims. "Kubeck and Hazen immediately asked air traffic control for a return to Miami due to smoke in the cockpit and cabin, and were given instructions for a return to the airport. One minute later, Hazen requested the nearest available airport."

I have yet to hear of a single midair aircraft fire that was not reported over comms.

I did not assert that they didn't have time to talk at all. The Valuejet pilots only knew they had a large scale raging fire onboard when they asked for the nearest available airport. Before that, they would have thought the airtight cargo compartment would extinguish a flame from O2 starvation. My point was that fires can overtake pilots very quickly, going from seemingly minor to terrifying in seconds.

You misunderstood which time interval I was talking about entirely. I am also not espousing a theory that this is what happened to the MH flight. I just wanted to point out to people what timescale these things operate within.