For those thinking of not catching fire when cutting paper, what if you got a thin piece of acrylic, sprayed adhesive on one side, then mounted some low tack transfer paper to it sticky side up. Would that allow you to cut without fly always? Maybe even be able to use it for long works thru the pass through slot.
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I normally use cheap tempered hardboard sprayed with sticky tack to hold paper down. But now I’m going to build myself a paper vacuum table, and I’m sure someone’s about to tell you about it!
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That’s what made me think of this, been reading the forum about vacuum tables. What sticky tack do you use?
Just some random stencil adhesive spray I bought off Amazon…
Lots has been done in this area. Seklema mats are often used, but many people have tried low-tack adhesives.
You’ve probably seen my recent experiments with a vacuum table and air assist reduction, both of which make cutting paper a lot simpler, but don’t do a lot to change the fire risk when cutting paper. That being said, with proper settings and an appropriate cut path, I don’t find fire to be much of a risk when cutting paper: it’s actually never even so much as flared up on me.
I think the risk with paper is that it will be shifted by the air assist into the beam and present a laregr fire risk… so yes, some way to affix it in place will reduce your risk profile.
Anyway I am rambling a bit. The bottom line, reduction of fire risk is pretty much the same regardless of your material, and it boils down to these guidelines:
Use a clean SVG without a lot of extraneous nodes and unnecessary detail.
Keep your paper from blowing around.
Use appropriate settings (fast is key, slower speeds present higher fire risks).
Stick to that plan and you shouldn’t have any more problem with fire using paper as you would anything else.
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You can skip the masking part if you use a repositionable spray adhesive like Krylon Easy Tack or 505. I’ve been using East Tack on a the same birch ply board for a couple years now. 
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I’ll have to remember that
I use a Skelema mat and love it for paper.
The temporary adhesive used to hold down t-shirts while screen printing on them works pretty well for this. e.g.:
It starts out a little aggressive. You can adjust it down by sticking a t-shirt to it and pulling it off a few times.
I still prefer the Seklema mat to a DIY sticky mat.
@evansd2 's vacuum table is very promising.
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