Burnt instrument panel on backside

Hello everyone, I have a question, ( it's not an A body) my daughter has a 1996 dodge stratus I bought for her 3 years ago for 200.00 dollars, I had to rebuild the engine and that is it.low miles, very nice car.she was coming home yesterday and smoke came out of the dash and died, I took out the gauge cluster and right above a plug connection there's some burnt resistors and inside also.All wiring and plug in are great. The battery is completely dead, is it possible that the alternator could have sent wide open voltage to the gauge cluster. Thank You for any help on this even though it's not an A body. I Have a picture attached.

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