One of the first things that will strike you if you think about safes, is how complicated their locks can be. Some modern safes use combination locks, finger scans, and a key to get in. In the past, a key oftentimes would have been sufficient.

If you really wanted to measure how secure a safe back in the day was, you looked at what it was made from. Bronze or iron was generally good, but steel was the best. It also tended to be more expensive. A safe made from sturdier materials with a less complicated lock was arguably better than one with more complex locks made from weaker components.

The first samples of safes we can see in safe history are ones used by the Egyptians in their vaults. Greeks used containers made of bronze and iron to hold prized possessions. Safes as we know them now were made by the English in the 1700s.

One of the true innovators in the industry, Charles Chubb made a safe renowned for its resistance to both fire and thieves. Soon more attention was being paid to the materials being used to make safes. Because they were stronger, steel, iron, and copper started to become the primary components of safes. They were also harder to burn, and heavier, so a potential thief would have great difficulty transporting a safe and trying to open it later at their convenience. Safes currently are virtually fireproof, and much stronger. They have retained their strength, while actually going down in size.  Stop by GunSafeHaven.com for more information on safes.

Home fires are very rare, but when they occur, are the documents, jewelry, cash, and other important valuables going to survive?  With the possibility of losing these valuables and the prices of safes coming down, many homeowners are choosing to invest in a fire safe.

Fire safes are actually not fireproof, but actually fire resistant.  Provided there is enough heat for a long enough time, everything will burn.  To make a safe fire proof, perlite and vermiculite are two of the most common ingredients in fire proof doors, cabinets as well as safes. Both are very light in weight, inorganic, inert and fire proof. Various manufacturers add additional chemicals and process to enhance their products.

These types of safes are designed with a UL rating.  Determining your needs will help you decide how high of a UL rating that you need.  The average business fire in the United States burns at approximately 800°F for 20 minutes. Fireproof safes and fireproof filing cabinets are UL tested to withstand a temperature of 1700°F for an entire hour.

There are fire proof safes that are rated for 1, 2, or 3 hours.  If the safe will be within minutes of the nearest fire department, it is highly unlikely that you will need a 2 or 3 hour rated safe.

In a fire, a fire proof safe will typically protect your valuables, but they are then often damaged by the water used to extinguish the fire!  Fire hoses can dump 100-250 gallons per minute on a fire.  It doesn’t take much of that to penetrate the safe to destroy your precious documents.  Getting a waterproof version of the fireproof safe is a wise investment.

Lastly, if you are planning to store any type of media such as computer disks, backup tapes, or microfilm in your safe, you should insure that your safe is also rated for “Media”. Otherwise, your papers and valuables may survive the fire just fine, but your disks may be melted.

Purchasing a fireproof safe is a wise investment and can make minimize the losses from a fire.