Sorry for the double post, the previous one was getting crammed.
http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Temperature_scale <- This helped a lot. Apparently, these clothes are set to ignite at the same temperature that water becomes liquid. I suppose the modder thought this would make a "cold" fire that wouldn't harm the dwarves. Now to see if removing the temperature thingies will change things or horribly destroy the world.
Result: crazy world. Reclaming my fortress gave me a massive human army at my disposal, embarking to another place gave me goblins. Of course it wouldn't be that easy xD The problem is most likely due to the empty spaces left from me using find->replace to get rid of the temperatures. Can't figure out how to make Microsoft Word or Notepad remove entire paragraphs, so maybe changing the temperature to something more tolerable, like the exact temperatures of dwarves themselves, will suffice.
Result: changed the ignite points to 70000, 10000 below their boiling points and so on. Embarking resulted in elves
Started as an adventurer... fiery clothes still have their "burn you alive" status. edit: oh yeah, apparently I've corrupted my game so that every embark has anything besides dwarves... unless all my dwarven civilizations have died out, which seems possible by spontaneous combustion ala enchanted clothing. I'm keeping that world for safekeeping, but I'm going to miss the potential that fortress had T.T