A properly-designed safe battery has the cells far enough apart that should one cell decide to catch fire, the adjacent cells are sufficiently-well insulated from the heat that they don't go up as well. Certification usually includes testing this, which must be fun to watch from a safe distance. Obviously if there's something else heat-sensitive nearby that will react to the heat then it may cause a general temperature rise that can cause a cascade failure of the remaining cells and a far worse fire.
Any form of lithium cell can generate heat - an internal short will convert all the chemical energy to heat and raise the temperature. Even if it's not a chemistry that will spontaneously catch fire on its own, it may generate enough heat to set off something else, even if it's just the packaging.