Anyone who can apply enough heat with a torch to blow up a wheel probably shouldn't be working on vehicles at all.
Yes, it can be done, but you really have to draw on some extra deep reserves of stupid to make it happen.
A little attention with a MAPP gas torch is how I got mine off just a few weeks ago. I guess I was fresh out of stupid that day, so everything worked out okay. Mind you, I probably have plenty more stupid built up in my account now, but that day I was pretty tapped out. I didn't manage to even warm up the rim, let alone the tire. Got the center hot enough to break it loose, though. It didn't really take much.
The ISSUE is not the instant heat but the lingering heat, as the center heats, the heat has NO WHERE to go but out, which will heat the air contracting the rim, with the volume of air in the tire, and the tire NOT in ground moving contract to suck the heat away, the air just keeps expanding, since it does not take much heat to get the air expanded enough that SOMETHING has to give.
YOU may have been lucky and got away with heating for 40 years, that does not mean that the next heated wheel will not go bang, there is a REASON for the DO NOT HEAT WHEELS WITH AIRED UP TIRES, non aired up good tires will go bang, just takes longer.
So with the above said and you guys DO heat the wheel, you COULD HAVE a VERY bad day and a very upset family, and besides if you live, you will HEAR for ever afterwards "How come you did NOT check", just this alone makes the risk to high.