Fire Charge

The Fire Charge is an item that was added in snapshot 12w04a, which can be used in a similar fashion to a Flint and Steel. It is essentially an upgrade to the flint and steel, as the fire spreads faster.

Dispensing
When a Fire Charge is launched from a dispenser, it acts like a Ghast's fireball and lights the area it touches on fire. Dispensers tend to fire the balls up. They are not affected by gravity, so they will continue on a path out of sight forever, or until coming into contact with something.

First look
The item was shown in the 1.1 gui file (item file) in the Minecraft .jar file.