Im keeping mine in my Military uniform (left hand pant-pocket). It has never ignited (carriet with a box of matches in plastic bag, and a erazer (pencilrubber, sorry about spelling, Im Swedish). Although its coated to prevent corrsion, it needs quite some force to ignite. So IMHO its quite safe. But carry a sharpening stone for the knife ot break of a pece of hacksaw blade to spare the knife blade, attach to the fire-steel with a lanyard.

An untried idea though is to pull a tube of rubber material (surgical tubing) over or plain electricians tape around it...

/Stefan, Sweden [Europe]