I'm fairly new here, as are you. I wouldn't go around insulting people. I mean, maybe they were just in a hurry and didn't care about their spelling? You are not the grammar police and you shouldn't criticize people based on spelling. If you couldn't understand what he was saying then I feel bad for you. It was not that hard to figure out. He was just trying to give you advice. If you took it the wrong way, well then that just too bad. =(
I would take every precaution to make sure there would not be a fire, but IMO using fire retardant may not be the best choice around the snakes (or any other pet for that matter). I would just go for buying melamine and building your own rack. Like I said before, my dad said it can only really catch fire if it's set a blaze. He's been working with wood since he was 16.
Hope you can figure out what to do.