According to my understanding when firls function is trying to calculate frequency response H(k) components depending on the given f,b values it is getting H(1) as non zero value but which should be zero value for the fir to be type 2 filter(odd order symmetric filter).So it is incrementing the order by 1 so that it becomes type 1 filter(even order symmetric filter) for which H(1) need not be zero.
For better understanding please refer to the table given at the end of the documentation