When pulling ticks:
Don't squeeze too hard
Don't yank or pull too fast
Don't use fire, if done wrong it will kill them instead of making them back out
Grasp it with whatever you can get hold of it with (fingers, tweezers, etc.), and apply outward pressure. Hold this for a while and the tick will turn loose and you can kill it.
The key is to check regularly and remove immediately.
There is another, and more deadly, disease being transmitted by ticks now. No treatment as of yet, and it can be lethal or cause severe damage.
Powassan Disease Evidently is used to be transmitted by particular tick that were not normally encountered by humans, but it has jumped over to the normal ticks we encounter.