I think you misunderstood GP. Lithium AA batteries are very reliable and keep charge for at least ten years (the standard metric is losing approximately 1% per year), that's what he's saying.

They won't burn because they contain metallic lithium (and not lithium salts like rechargeable cells) and don't contain easily flammable organic solvents (yep, like rechargeable cells). There are videos on YouTube of people disassembling them with no problems (for example, to extract metallic lithium for chemistry experiments).

it's a sincere and earnest question - I didn't know. I appreciate the additional info.

I believe that is primarily an issue for damaged or rechargeable lithium batteries, so not really a concern here.