I had one of those log lighters in northerm California. Mine was a standard looking, threaded pipe with a cap on one end. May have been black pipe, may have been regular iron water pipe, it was hard to tell. And there was a key to one side of the fireplace opening for turning on the gas. The pipe had holes drilled on opposite sides about every two or three inches as I remember it. But it put out quite a bit of flame. Seemed like a whole lot more than a burner as it wasn't carberated at all like all burners I've seen. So what gas was shot out of there wasn't burned very efficiently. I never thought much about it being dangerous, but I guess it was since it had no auto shut-off valve. I replaced it with a log set that also had no safety valve.
As an interesting note. Both my fireplaces are plumbed for gas here in Missouri. Both had log sets when I moved in. When I had the insert installed, I thought I should remove the gas feed that still penetrated into the fireplace about 3 inches, but the installer told me it was nothing to be concerned about. He reminded me that I'd had open flame and embers in there before the insert and now I had a modest clearance to hot cast iron with a heat shield (the convection shroud) between the two. Seemed reasonable, so I left it alone rather than go to a fair amount of effort to remove it, cap it somewhere outside, and plug the penetration. 3 years and so far, so good.