I finally figured out what was wrong. The "Damage activates" flag cannot be enabled for the func_button because I think when you first use it it senses that damage and "activates" it again, which would turn it off, so before you can even see it, it is shut off. Also make sure you don't have 0.50 for parameter override for the extiguish temporary- I set it to 0.51 and it worked fine. I dunno why this is but instead of making the fire completely vanish immediately, setting 0.51 makes it go in just about half a second. Thanks everyone for all your help, especially BJ.
PS: The problem map is now an example map if anyone would like to check out just what the heck I've been talking about.
www.twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=4326