With fuel exhausted, article locked in safe (3,2,3,4)
I believe the answer is:
out of the wood
'locked in safe' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'with fuel exhausted article' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'with' could be 'w' (short for with) and 'w' is located in the answer.
'exhausted' could be 'out' (out can mean empty or exhausted) and 'out' is found in the answer.
'article' could be 'the' (the definite article in English) and 'the' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for out of the wood that I've seen before include "No longer having a problem" , "Clear from danger" , "how to serve traditional real ale?" .)