My guess is this isn't a backfire. Backfire is a term which means the air/fuel mixture in the intake manifold ignites and burns in reverse of the flow, up through the carb. Thus the term backfire.
My guess is what you're experiencing is an engine running rich and accumulating fuel in the exhaust, which then ignites. This is likely due to a misfire in one or more cylinders, but could just be the entire engine running too rich.
Rouse is right - there should be codes. You can also watch your fuel trims (or log them along the way if you need to in order to see what's happening exactly at the moment you get the exhaust ignition. My guess is they go very rich or you have a misfire code.