Five Things to Look for in Fire Safes

There are different  reasons why people purchase a safe today. Reasons range from theft protection for valuables to keeping items out of children's hands to protection from natural disasters and fire. A persons threat from many of these vary from low to high, but of them all, natural disasters and fire are no respecter of persons. Though fire can strike anybody at any time, there are some things that contribute to your amount of fire vulnerability. Lets take a look at that, as well as some things to look for in good fire safes.

First, how vulnerable are you to fire? Though there is no definitive answer, there are things that contribute to the threat level. Such as, what types of material are you house made out of? Do you live in the city or country? What type of roofing material is on your home? How old is your home and how current is its electrical system? If you live in the country, how much clearance is there between you and the trees? Lets face it, if you live in a wood sided home with a cedar roof and the forest bumps right up to your walls, your home has a higher vulnerabilty to fire so you will want a safe with better fire protection.

So what types of things should you look for in quality fire safes?

1. First, make sure it is a fire resistant safe. There are some security safes and chests on the market that are not designed at all to protect against fire.
   


2. All fire resistant safes should have at least one layer of fireboard. Fireboard is a fire resistant insulation that is on the inside of the safe. You most often see fireboard in 1/2" thickness, though some companies use 5/8" thick fireboard. Higher quality safes will have more layers of fireboard. The highest quality fire safes I have seen have 5 layers of fireboard in the walls, ceiling, doors and doorjambs.
   


3. The weak link in fire safes is the door. If the door seal is not good, heat and smoke may get into the safe and damage the contents. To prevent this, many top safe manufacturing companies use Palusol®. Palusol® is a special type of fireboard that expands when heated. As the Palusol® expands, it completely seals the door from threatening heat and smoke.
   


4. The thicker the steel of fire safes, the greater the fire resistance. Most good safes start at a 12 gauge steel, and higher quality safes will be thicker. Just remember, that when it comes to steel measurements, the smaller the gauge, the thicker the steel.
   


5. Last, make sure the safe is fire rated by an independent company. Most safe companies use Underwriters Laboratories (UL) so the safe will have a UL rating. Usually the rating gives how long a safe will withstand a fire burning at a certain temperature. Most safes will protect its contents from a 1200 to 1400 degree Fahrenheit fire for anywhere from 15 to 120 minutes. This temperature is the outside measurement, and the time is how long before inside damage occurs to paper, which chars at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Be aware that digital data can be damaged at lower temperatures.
   

   
   Some companies also give their fire safes a BTU rating. A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of heat energy it takes to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. All combustible material have a BTU rating. The higher the BTU, the longer before heat damage occurs. This is different from actual fire. In the California wild fires a few years ago, the heat was intense. Safes with high BTU's preserved their contents. They may not have been directly in any fire for a long period of time, but they did have extensive exposure to the heat.
   
   

As you are shopping around and looking at different fire safes, remember to consider how vulnerable the safe will be to fire based on its location, and then use this information to narrow down the list of best fire safes for your circumstances.