fire starting tools

I had one of those sparker things in a survival kit. The are totally garbage, don't get it.
Also don't get the blast match or any kind of plastic doohicky. They all break. Just get a plain ferro rod.

You need to understand that ferrocium rods are terrible firestarters. The only good thing about them is they don't fail. If you have some easy to light tinder on hand, like some cotton balls, then a ferro rod works well. If you need to work with damp natural tinders then the firesteel is gonna suck. Yes you can get a fire going in almost any conditions with a ferro rod but it's the difference between carving super fine curls and lighting wood scrapings from the center of a large piece of wood vs holding a flame under some tiny twigs for a 10 seconds. All of those people advocating firesteels are the internet are bushcrafters who enjoy challenging themselves and not backpackers looking for emergency fire starting tools.

I think it's more important to know what type of fire you are lighting?
Lighting a gas stove is simple. If you are lighting a wood fire, that is completely different. My back up is another lighter but if I was in a wet invironment I would use a torch adaptor that turns a normal lighter into the torch, also minimizing a break.

If lighting a wood fire every time my most important back up would be a bit of gas or small esbit chunks so you don't have to abuse your lighter so much.

So the best back up would be making it easier to light that fire in the first place.

A 1/4" diameter ferro rod is always on my knife lanyards along with an EZsharp carbide sharpener. Either the spine of my knife blade or the sharpener will throw sparks off the Ferro rod.

Producing sparks reliably is one thing, but to get a wood fire going you need dry tinder.
A small baggie of dryer lint weighs next to nothing and works well ..

Have others also seen high breakage rates of the Fire Lite?

I haven’t used a Fire Lite a lot, but I will +1 the comments on using sparks to start a fire. It’s really difficult UNLESS you have dry cotton balls, dryer lint, or some purpose made type of tinder. Tinder Qwik works pretty well. Got to keep it dry.

A fire steel works on canister gas stoves — mostly. Some can be difficult to light, typically ones with small burner heads. I find that getting directly over the gas burner is the best way to light a canister stove. Just get your hands out of the way quickly after it ignites. Using a fire steel from the sides is much harder. The easiest stove to light with a fire steel is an MSR Windboiler which has a wide, cup shaped burner.

Some fire steels are better than others. A larger (but alas heavier) fire steel is typically better for lighting gas stoves than a small one.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim’s Blog

I keep a few water proof matches and an extra mini bic, with 3 or 4 quick tinder tabs, sealed in a mini plastic bag. I have never needed it (my backup), but it will always work.