If you were braking on the rear wheel only and the rim got hot that would blow the rear tube. My first wife was an over cautious descender and only felt safe using the rear brake, for an unwarranted fear of going over the handle bars.
She was on a 20" wheel steel rimmed bike, this was some 35+ years ago, and the bang sounded like a cannon going off.
The tyre was blown off the rim and this didn't happen until some distance off the bottom off the hill on the flat when we hit a bit of bumpy road. I actually burnt my hand on the rim as I bent to examine the damage. The hill was only about 15% and I, on a similar bike, had gone down at 20-30mph alternating front and rear brakes to stop it going any faster. She had gone down at 10-12mph and rode the rear brake all the way. Not so much wind to cool the rim, much more work going into the rim and the result was that the tyre was blown clean off the rim when it hit a bump.