Anyway, I recently revisited the topic, in the hope of discovering more. The original source for the claim is the work, Aegyptiaca, by the Egyptian priest and writer Manetho. However, this work is now lost, and only survives in fragment form in the works of other writers.
The following quotes come from Plutarch's On Isis And Osiris.
"..occasionally they humiliate and insult him [Typhon] at certain festivals, when they abuse red haired men and tumble an ass down a precipice; for example this is done by the people of Memphis, because Typhon was red haired, and like an ass in complexion."
Typhon is the Greek name. In Egyptian the god is known as Set or Seth, and is the god of storms, disorder, violence and foreigners.
"The Egyptians, believing that Typhon was born with red hair, dedicate to sacrifice the red coloured oxen, and make the scrutiny so close that if the beast should have even a single black or white hair, they consider it unfit for sacrifice"
It's interesting how similar this is to the idea of the sacrificial Red Heifer in Judaism. Particularly the notion that the animal must be perfect and unblemished.
"For in the city Idisthyas they used to burn men alive, as Manetho relates, calling them "Typhonians," and by tossing their ashes in a winnowing-fan made away with and scattered the same."
I guess this last quote is the source for the claim. The line (and wider surrounding paragraph it's from) doesn't mention red hair specifically. So it seems to be the case that the red hair is implied by the label "Typhonian," and the wider context of Typhon being viewed as red-haired.
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