With over 350,000 house fires occurring each year, it’s not surprising that so many individuals desire a gun safe to secure their belongings.
A gun safe is a perfect appliance to keep your guns and valuables secure when you are at home or traveling. But what if there was a fire? Will a gun safe survive a house fire? Let’s find out!
Will A Gun Safe Survive A House Fire?
Many of us may wonder whether the contents of the safe will survive a house fire! The answer is yes. Safes are not only fire-resistant but also offer several other benefits, such as water resistance and tamper-evident features that make it difficult for criminals.
Gun Safe Is Completely Fire-Resistant
Fire resistance is a ubiquitous marketing tool companies use to sell gun safes in today’s gun safe market. To encourage consumers’ purchase, the firm must ensure that the gun safe would protect their weapons or valuables in the case of a fire.
We all know that a house can burn down in minutes and that most houses have an average of ninety thousand dollars of property inside.
Before firefighters arrived, the average house fire will burn for 20 minutes within the temperature range from 800 to 1200 degrees. But with the proper precautions, your guns will remain protected in almost every emergency.
Knowing how to keep yourself safe in a fire could also make the recovery process a little easier for your family. The size and integrity of a gun safe, plus the room’s insulation, will determine the amount of heat it can resist before melting.
Safes with less than an hour of fire resistance will not provide adequate protection to survive a typical home or business fire. That’s why it is senseless to purchase a safe that can’t completely protect your guns and valuables.
Although this is essential for a good fire rating, some cheap safes don’t even have fire seals on the door.
What Makes A Gun Safe Fire-Retardant?
Rhino Ironworks Gun Safe
The thickness of the material used to construct a safe determines its fire resistance.
A safe built to give exceptional fire protection constructs of solid steel, numerous layers of UL fire-rated sheetrock. And its door seals can keep smoke and heat out of your safe.
However, to provide proper fire protection, manufacturers combine either a fire-board or composite material.
Fire-Board Material
Drywall is another term for fireboard. It is a powdered rock called gypsum placed between two thick sheets of paper to make a boat.
The manufacturer installed the drywall between the safe’s outside steel wall and the inside wall. Water discharges as the drywall warms up in a fire, and this vapor cools the inside gun safe.
There are two types of drywall: standard and upgraded versions with additives that provide superior fire safety.
Composite Material
Composite Material
In some cases, the problem is that the fire-board is still susceptible to damage from extreme heat.
As a result, the manufacturer uses a concrete-based composite material to increase the fire resistance of the gun safe. They also use this substance to fill the space between the safe’s outside and inside metal walls.
Since composite is a poor heat conductor, it heats up very slowly, protecting the valuables within the safe from the heat outside. Composite gun safes are often quite heavy and among the most costly choices available on the market.
How Does The Fire Test Of Gun Safe?
Organizing experiments make sure a gun safe can keep whatever’s inside from being destroyed by heat through a series of tests.
Underwriters laboratories conducted the most widely recognized test for this purpose.
There are four kinds of tests:
- Fire endurance – standard test: fire protection.
- Fire and impact – additional test: Drop the safe from 30 feet to mimic a drop from a third floor into a basement in the event of a significant fire.
- Explosion hazard – required test: guarantee the safe will not explode in a rapid heating condition due to pressure building inside the safe or the safe walls.
- Explosion and impact – combine test.
Why Do You Need A Fire-Rated Gun Safe?
A gun safe is a long-term investment that will provide you with peace of mind. Almost all insurance companies require this type of protection, and they’re typically well worth the cost!
You can store essential papers and photocopies, as well as valuable jewelry, in a safe without taking up too much space.
Make sure you have a fire-rated gun safe that can withstand temperatures above 1200 degrees. In addition, the gun safe can protect your property in devastating circumstances like a house fire or burglary.
That’s all why it pays off to get a gun safe designed with some perfect details like fireproof protection for peace of mind.
For fire-rated gun safes, take a look at Cannon, Liberty, and Sentry to find one that works best for you. High-quality safes can be pricey, but protecting your priceless objects makes them worth investing in.
Generally, gun safes are a great idea for those who live in high-risk fire areas like California, but even if your neighborhood has great public security, there’s always the danger of theft. It never harms to protect yourself and your family by using a fire-rated safe.
Final Words
Hopefully, reading this article can help you find out which gun safe measures work best for your needs and answer your question about will a gun safe survive a house fire.
If you have any additional questions about this topic, please feel free to comment below. Also, stay tuned to update more helpful posts from our site!
