I think there are much better things to start a fire with, but..... imagine you're stranded and you need heat. Say, for whatever reason, you need more heat than you can get by being inside your car and you don;t have much fuel. So you want to build a fire outside, not far from the car, and you have no lighters, matches, flint strikers, or anything else. You might want to work a few times at starting a fire with the cigarrette lighter. I mean...just toying with the idea I can see some merit to it.