The best fire starter I ever carried was a carbide lamp - heat and illumination on one handy package. Unfortunately, they are now realistically obsolete. In critical situations, strike anywhere matches have worked fine for me over decades. The secret is to have, or collect, adequate tender and small stuff.

A small piece of surgical tubing is a huge benefit in coaxing flames. The tubing is also multi-use. We used the tubing in our bolt kit (rock climbing) to start fires and also collect water from inaccessible crevices.