Grease flare up problems - any help?

Yesterday I was cooking some ribeyes on my KJ (temp approximately 500 deg) and had some grease fire flare ups. This same thing happened a few weeks ago when I was cooking without the heat deflector plate, and the steaks were dripping right onto the lump. So yesterday I tried using the heat deflector plate and put a drip pan on it, but the dang drip pan still caught fire. I don't know how to remedy the situation. Can anyone help this noob? I feel like there's an obvious solution I'm missing and y'all will laugh at me. Feel free

That's actually what I did. I put the drip pan on the ceramic deflector plate, but the drippings inside the deflector plate started burning and emitting an awful smell. then it caught on fire haha. Yesterday was a bad day.

I didn't check the thermometer on the front of the grill during that cook, but I've done it before and it appears to be accurate. It was reading right around 500 deg.

The deflector was right above the heat source, probably 3-4 inches, and then the grill was another 3-4 inches above that. This was in a Kamado Joe, by the way.