Yeah, I looked it up and you are talking about an absorption refrigerator. The one in our RV did not have a pilot,(though it had ammonia gas - I remember the leak). Ours didn’t have a switch like that either, I would bet residential units are different than RV units, but I could be wrong.
I found out that there are even kerosene powered fridges.
https://www.lehmans.com/product/dometic-kerosene-refrigerator/gas-refrigerators-freezers
Yes, the residential ones that might explode are the ones using propane as the refrigerant.
The problem is the propane leaking into the box, creating an explosive mixture in a sealed container.