Electrical smell by heater panel and is hot to touch

Believe you need to open that area up and find the bad set of wires and fix this before it burns down the car and undo the battery while its not being diagnosed in-case of fire while not attended.

There is also a ignition box on these usually down near under dash between steering column and center dash controls that when going bad will put out a lot of heat, if yours is in that area may check it too, its 2"x4', similar to a CDI on a motorcycle. But its more likely a wire from that system hooked up to wire it should not be or a heater/ac control wire getting contact with something so it needs addressed or unhook battery.

Sounds like a short, Find it and fix before there is major damage.

Thanks everyone we unplugged the problem for now seems to of the cause just gonna leave unplugged til we get the money to fix it