When I go hiking, I pretty much take it all. Little space is needed, not much weight. BIC lighter, waterproof matches, firesteel, fresnal lens, candles (including "can't blow 'em out" birthday trick ones), PJ cotton balls, commercial firestarter tinder, fire paste, Trangia burner - you name it. Never had to use any of it in an emergency. But if disaster does befall me, I don't want to be totally dependent on my backwoods skills (which are not so good) to light a fire in bad conditions. I'm more than happy to skip the manliness and give myself every advantage possible with stuff I carry with me. I'm not saying you shouldn't know how to do things with zero aids, but I certainly wouldn't want to put myself into that scenario intentionally. I fall into the "prepared hiker" category, not the "ultralight hiker" one, in case that isn't obvious. Road flares sound good, I'll have to look into those to see if there are smaller ones available, that don't look like the giant stick of dynamite ones I remember in the trunk of our family car decades ago.