I don't really see why not. Its exactly like the bf2 explosive barrels and fences. For the first idea, imagine like a farmers hut on tatooine. The hut model would have some dents in it in a few places, like one or two on the roof. Then on the map itself, a couple destroyable models shaped like building's roof are put over these dents, so when those are destroyed it reveals the dents underneath.

Or for the second idea, theres a few destroyable objects, that simplely can't be destroyed, they have a huge amount of health. Only ceratin weapons, firebased ones, can damage them. When they take a certain amount of damage (just a little bit) they have a fire animation (just like an m1 tank does when its wounded) and also a splash damage efffect added. The 'spreadable fires' are simply a result of having a few of these objects close enough to each other to damage each other.
It probally couldn't work on a wide scale, like you said, but what if it where confined to small areas, like in a large capital ship's engine room, and then only with a few strategically placed objects.
The only thing I can see (through untrained eyes) that might get in the way would would be actually coding objects to have a splash damage effect once they reach a certain damage level.

Futurama: You Can't Prove it Won't Happen