Help - Air filter assembly caught on fire

[Behdad <bbehnam@erols.com>]

As I was driving today, my '88 16V started puttering and then stalled. 
When I popped the hood, I could see smoke and smell plastic burning. 
After getting it home and disassembling the air filter assembly, I found
the air filter had pretty much burned up, the plastic housing is all
melted inside and some of the hoses have also melted.  The engine still
turns over and runs briefly before stalling out.

Does anyone know how and why this happened and other than having to
replace the filter (which seems to be the only thing signficantly
damaged) is there anything else that should definately be replaced.  My
other concern is how much damage I may have done to the engine since
there was no air filter on my 20 minute drive home and there was
difinately alot of debris still in the housing when I took it apart. 
God knows what got sucked up into the engine.

My knowledge in this are is very limited, so any help would be
appreciated.  Especially since I have to drive to work on Monday.

Thanks in advance.

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