The only real fire risks at 40C/104F in your studio are solvents next to an open flame plus rags soaked in drying oils such as linseed, walnut and such. Keep open flames away from them, don’t smoke while using them and keep your oil soaked rags in a container full of water and you should be good to go. Oil paint, canvas, wood frames & easels, chairs and even your brushes are COMBUSTIBLE but not FLAMMABLE. They can burn if you put a fire underneath them for quite a while, but they aren’t going to catch fire by touching a match to them or spontaneously while sitting in the tubes or on your palette. Solvents stored in your studio or home will certainly accelerate a fire if they become engulfed in flames and the containers burst, so you may not want to store too much of it in your studio. Keep just the amount you need on hand to use in your daily work. If you have gallons of the stuff, an outdoor storage shed is better than in your studio. For an even greater margin of safety, keep the flammable liquids in a metal fire resistant cabinet. I have several gallons of solvents on hand and keep most of them in the garage next to an outer wall in a fire resistant cabinet.
The most flammable materials I have in my studio, listed from most flammable to least, actually tested by pouring into a small open dish and trying to ignite them:
[*]Alcohol – easily ignited with a match – producing very small flames, even easier with a propane torch, producing much larger flames
[*]Turpentine – unable to light with a match – fairly easy to ignite with a propane torch – produces fairly large flames on its own.
[*]Oil of Spike – could not ignite with a match, could ignite with a propane torch, fairly low volume of flames.
[*]Kleanstrip OMS – could not ignite with a match, would ignite with a torch but only if the flame was held on the surface of the liquid for about a second, causing to to give off more fumes
[*]Gamsol OMS – could not ignite with a match, less easily ignited with a torch than the Kleanstrip OMS, smaller volume of flames. This is the least flammable solvent I keep in my studio plus it is the least toxic / irritating fume wise of everything above other than the alcohol.
Note that all of the above solvents are significantly easier to ignite if they are saturating some kind of a wick, like a soaked rag or paper towel. Oils can also be ignited fairly easily if in a wicking material, an example being oil lamps of old.
Don’t take my amateur advice when it comes to flammable stuff. Consult a professional pyromaniac.
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