The problem of determining the thermal states of reacting solid surfaces or gas at a surface and the critical conditions for their inflammation and extinction is of importance both in the combustion of carbon (coal) and for some highly exothermic heterogeneous catalytic processes. This paper examines the effect of ambient temperature on the critical conditions for inflammation and extinction when both diffusion and chemical kinetics are taken into consideration. The transition conditions (the boundary at which criticality disappears) are determined using different modified definitions. The exact Arrhenius form of the reaction rate and different modes of heat transfer are manipulated in this theoretical study.