As with any security product, the amount of fire rating you need in a safe depends on your specific needs and circumstances. Your needs are based on what you are putting into the fire safe. Your circumstances are things like how long will it take for the fire department to get to you.
Overview:
A 30-minute fire-rated safe is sufficient to protect documents in homes under 1500 sf located in urban areas. Firefighters will arrive quickly to lower the temperatures. Home size, home location, and the safe's content can increase the needed fire rating.
How Much Fire Rating You Need is Determined by:
There are no such things as fire “proof” safes. Safes are fire rated to stay under a specific temperature for a specified amount of time. You can find details on safe fire ratings in our article Safe Fire Ratings Explained.
At a high level, a safe’s fire rating will specify an internal temperature first, then the time it is rated for. For example: a Class 350 1-Hr means that 350°F is the highest the internal temperature of the safe will become when exposed to a fire for 1 hr. UL rated fire safes work when the safe’s exposure to heat is for less time than the stated time.
So forget about fireproof and think fire protected for a specified period of time.
If you're only preserving important papers, you will need a Class 350 fire rated safe so that the temperature will be low enough to not burn the paper. If you're preserving electronics or photos, you will need either Class 150 or Class 125 (150°F and 125°F respectively) fire rated safes since those are the maximum temperatures you want to reach for electronics and other storage media.
A 30-minute fire-rated safe is enough fire protection if you are putting the safe on the floor, in a small single-family home, in an urban area. Safes are rated at more extreme temperatures than home fires and the fire department average response time in a urban community is around 10 minutes.
In a typical small house fire, a safe's fire rating is for higher external temperature than the safe will actually be exposed. Homes typically burn at close to 1100° F and fire ratings are normal performed at 1200 degrees and up. A 30-minute UL fire rating is performed at external temperatures of 1550° F. So there is a bit of a cushion there because the house will not get as hot.
Also, the target response time of a firefighter in a urban area is 10 minutes. During this time the house is heating up but it takes a bit before hitting its maximum burn temperature. Once on site, the firefighters will be spraying water onto the home and begin to cool it. So, your safe will only be exposed to the 1100 degrees for a short while.
The location of the safe is important. Heat rises. The higher the safe, the higher the heat level it is exposed to. By placing your safe on the floor, you will increase tyhe length of time it with withstand a house fire.
The last I heard, but I can’t find the source for this information, is that a safe in a typical house fire, in a urban area, will only be exposed to that 1100°F max heat for about 11 minutes.
Gun safe fire ratings are a special case of a general home safe. First, they are taller and thus will be exposed to a higher heat. The temperature difference between ground level and eye level (the top of a gun safe) in a house fire can be over 500° F.
Additionally, you are not only protecting your fire arm collection but the ammunition. Ammunition won't start just exploding when exposed to high temperatures, but the ammunition can become spent and/or misshapen as the gun powder is ignited (typically around 400° F.
Due to the height of a gun safe and the storage of ammunition, a 1-hour fire rated gun safe should provide enough fire protection in a house fire. This is for a small home, in a residential neighborhood with emergency services nearby. Factors such as home size, location, gun safe location, and emergency response time may increase the needed rating.
If you live in an rural area, you'll need higher fire ratings due to the longer response times. If it’s going to take the fire fighters an hour to get there, add an hour to the rating you need.
If you have a large home or live in a multi-unit complex, it will take longer to control the fire and cool it down after the fire fighters arrive.
Larger home, two story homes, and business complexes may also burn hotter. Our rule of thumb is if the home is over 1500 sqf, you should buy at least a 1-hour fire rated safe. If it’s a mansion, go even higher.
The same applies if the safe is in a commercial building. Commercial building are larger and fires are harder to get under control. They may also burn hotter than your average home would. For fire safes going into commercial buildings, get at least a 2-hour fire rating.
If you have gold (lucky you!) or a coin collection, find out the melting temperature. Gold melts at over 1900° F so if that’s all your putting into a home safe, be focused on burglary protection and forget about fire protection. You don’t need it.
Safes placed up higher, or on a second story, will get exposed to hotter temperatures of safes that are placed on the ground. Just 5 feet of height difference can add 500° F to the temperature. For maximum fire protection place gun safes and document safes at ground level, on the ground floor.
The best fire rated safe is one that carries a UL fire rating. These safes will perform exactly as specified by that rating.
Check out what happens to fire rated safes that are not UL rating in our article “Safe Can’t Take the Heat.
But, specifically, what is the best fire rated safe I am aware of?
The best safe fire that is generally available is a UL Class 125 - 3 hour Fire Rated Media Safe, by FireKing. The contents of this safe will stay under 125°F for 3 hours at external temperatures up to 1920°F. Ideal for businesses with large electronic storage protection needs.
The DM4420-3 can be purchased on Amazon for around $10,000 (at the time this was written) and that’s $8000 under list price so you’d be hard pressed to find a better deal anywhere other than Amazon.
This 3-hr fire rated safe has a full 8 inches of material from outer to inner walls on ALL sides to keep the contents under 125°F. It also passed the explosion and impact tests.
They make smaller versions as well, but with volume decreasing inside faster than it does outside, the storage space inside diminishes greatly.
But if you want to be sure that USB drive and those old floppy disks with your family photos on them are protected to the fullest extent possible, the DM1413-3, is smaller and more affordable.
Though its 30H x 25W x 31D on the outside, the inside is a tight 13H x 11W x 16D (1.5 cubic feet).
Best price on it I’ve seen on the DM1413-3 Fire Rated Media Safe is on Amazon for about $5,000 when I wrote this.
Safe fire Ratings of up to 4 hours can be tested, but very few safes feature them. I’ve seen fire ratings of 4 hours on Vault Doors, but I’ve never seen a 4-hr fire rated safe on any other manufactured personal-use safe.
An entire room can be built around a vault door to achieve a 4-hour fire room rating (there are UL ratings for walls, floors, and ceilings, too) if such protection is desired.
Disclosure: As an eBay / Amazon Associate I may earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s easy to be fooled if you don’t know what to look for in a safe’s fire rating. A product may claim to be fireproof, but there’s a big difference between being fireproof for 10 minutes at 600°F and fireproof for 2 hours at 1850°F. Familiarizing yourself with UL and ETL standards helps you better understand what it takes to keep your valuables protected.
It's important to ensure fire protection claims are certified by a qualified party
Not all safes that claim to be "fireproof" or "fire protected" are the same. That's why standards were created and organizations like UL and ETL work to test and certify product claims so consumers can trust the products that they are buying.
UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories and
is an independent, nonprofit testing lab for consumer, commercial, and industrial products. With over 100 years of experience, UL is
globally recognized and considered the gold standard for testing and certification of product claims, largely because they created the standards. Safes that have been certified by UL are of the highest quality and offer the highest level of fire protection available
, meaning your safe can withstand high temperatures for an extended period of time.
ETL Verified is a product verification mark (issued by Intertek) that is used to ensure
manufacturers meet their own internal test requirement
s. Organizations seek an ETL verification for specific claims, like water testing, where there isn’t an existing standardized test.