The origins of the association is a bit sketchy, the best I could come up with is "somewhere in the 1500's" or even further back.
But it had to do with salamanders living in logs, and people lighting the logs on fire, and they thought they came out of the fire.
In other words, abiogenesis.
Edited by Signed "Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."
Indeed. Salamanders often hibernate or nest in stacks of wood. As they require humidity, and wood absorbs and provides such, it makes for ideal nesting. Someone would try to light the log for warth or cooking, causing the Salamander to wake up and flee, giving birth to the myth Salamanders were born of flames. Or so goes the theory. Myths about the Salamander and fire were around for a long time. Greeks and Romans believed Salamanders could put out fires by touching them.
The Talmud itself calls the Salamander "A creature of Fire" whose blood grants immunity to fire
and it was written in 200 AD. Almost 50 years before Paracelsus, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote "The Salamander has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin."
The Other Wiki has a comprehensive article showing just how insanely old the association between Salamanders and fire is
The association between Salamanders and fires is way older than Paracelsus
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