What is the difference between a tire deflation and a tire explosion? In this question, our intrepid former 747 pilot Terry mentioned, in the accepted answer, that:


  As I understand it, tires that dangerously overheat will explode before melting, and that's why thermal plugs are used which melt and deflate the tire to prevent their exploding.


His understanding was confirmed by other comments and answers.

My question is what is the net difference between a tire deflating due to the plug melting and the tire deflating due to explosion? Either way, you're landing/taxiing with a flat tire. 

The only thing that comes to mind is that once the plane is on the ground and stopped, an exploding tire might injure safety crews and/or pax evacuating.
An exploding tire while the plane is rolling will propel debris in various directions.

This happened with the crashed Concorde on takeoff. A chunk of the tire hit the tanks and caused a punctured in it. This then lead to the fire and loss of power.