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The posts above pretty much cover all the points. My refrigerator struggled when temps were above mid 80s until I followed some of the suggestions mentioned above and on other threads. I added two circulating fans to the interior. One small fan was on the back of the bottom shelf to blow air up, and the other blew gently across the cooling fins up top. My refrigerator has the factory fans on the condenser fins but they don't come on until the temperature pretty too high. I added a couple 120mm computer case fans above the coils and hooked them up to my solar panel so they ran whenever the sun was out.
My refrigerator was improperly baffled from the factory and not being in a slide was easy for me to fix.
I did all the work myself and the parts were under $50 and it made the refrigerator much more immune to high ambient temps. In the heat of the day I do need to turn it up, and turn it back down after outside temps cool.
One thing to keep in mind regarding refrigerator fires is I believe they are much like a commercial airline crashes, very, very rare, but very dramatic. As such, there's a few things to keep in mind when reading about such things on forums.
There's an inherent bias in the information you receive on a forum. I'm not saying the forum members are bias, but the fact is that many people come to forums to talk about or ask about problems. People who are happily going through life with no problems with their RV are much less likely to post. It's bias in the data. I see it in all the different forums I belong to and there's been times I've worried my car is a problem model, and so is my motorcycle even if I haven't had any problems. Reading about OTHER people's problems sows the seed of doubt in my mind because its easy to keep perspective.
With that in mind, I want you to stop and imagine how many RVs that are out there on the road of all ages and types. The overwhelming majority of them have or had an absorption refrigerator. Of those, when just about all of them fail, they do so silently and without catching fire. It just quits cooling and that is that. My 1998 has the original Norcold 1200 in it and it's still working. The Norcold 1200 is one that is often mentioned when it comes to fires. Of course my 20 year old refer is a single data point but there has to be thousands of these refrigerators out there like mine that still work or have died a silent death without catching fire.
Fear of refrigerator fires is one of those that need to be put in perspective. You are in much, much, much, more danger driving down the road or crossing the street in city traffic when sightseeing. People talk about being afraid of refrigerator fires, but there much less talk about being afraid of space heaters, and many people run electric space heaters in their coaches. Space heaters cause house fires and kill people too. Another thing that does happen is called observer's bias. It's natural, we all do it. I've seen posts where a photo of a burnt RV is shown and a comment is made that it was probably a refrigerator fire. That assumption is more likely to be made than something else like an electrical fire, or a furnace fire, or engine fire. Thats' observer's bias, which adds even more fuel to the fear of refrigerator fires - so to speak.
I hope that adds some perspective to the issue of refrigerator fires. As to the problem your refrigerator is having keeping cool in high ambient temps: You may find that a couple simple mods may help.
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Tom and Pris M. along with Buddy the 18 year old Siamese cat
1998 Safari Serengeti 3706, 300HP Cat 3126 Allison 3060, 900 watts of Solar.
Dragging four telescopes around the US in search of dark skies.
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