  The Short GAmma Ray Front Air Cherenkov Experiment (SGARFACE) uses the
Whipple 10 m telescope to search for bursts of $\gamma$ rays. SGARFACE is
sensitive to bursts with duration from a few ns to $\sim$20 $\mu$s and with
$\gamma$-ray energy above 100 MeV. SGARFACE began operating in March 2003 and
has collected 2.2 million events during an exposure time of 2267 hours. A
search for bursts of $\gamma$ rays from explosions of primordial black holes
(PBH) was carried out. A Hagedorn-type PBH explosion is predicted to be visible
within 60 pc of Earth. Background events were caused by cosmic rays and by
atmospheric phenomena and their rejection was accomplished to a large extent
using the time-resolved images. No unambiguous detection of bursts of $\gamma$
rays could be made as the remaining background events mimic the expected shape
and time development of bursts. Upper limits on the PBH explosion rate were
derived from the SGARFACE data and are compared to previous and future
experiments. We note that a future array of large wide-field air-Cherenkov
telescopes equipped with a SGARFACE-like trigger would be able to operate
background-free with a 20 to 30 times higher sensitivity for PBH explosions.
