Fortunately, whenever I have had carbide in my greasy paws, I have also had a carbide lamp, much the better appliance for generating gas.

They are basically obsolete now, but I certainly appreciated the utility of a carbide lamp in caves and on many a night long search operation. After all, you have both heat, light, and flame for starting a fire, right in the palm of your hand. The lamp had a mechanism that regulated the flow of water into the carbide chamber, thus avoiding the over generation of acetylene, which will indeed produce a bomb, with often bad results.

I still have my lamps, but carbide is now a super hassle to obtain,so I light my way with electrics these days.