Fire evac and home safe prep

[nothumbs]

I've a Holon safe with a S&G 1004 electronic keypad. Likely I should have thought all this through earlier, but here we are. As the fire season on the West Coast continues to be a disaster and we live in a WUI area which may become subject to evacuation at some point, I'm asking the community what prep if any I should give to my safe assuming we need to evacuate. Is the keypad likely to survive (I imagine not), would a mechanical dial have been a better choice for fire survival. If the keypad is destroyed, how would I gain access to the contents of the safe post fire? Details please if you've got them.

[MartinHewitt]

Modern dials are made from zamak which has a melting point of 720°F. Not much more fire proof than a keypad. You have probably go back to at least the 50s to find a lock with a dial made from brass (melting point around 1700°F). But also in case of a modern zamak dial there could be still sticking out the spindle if it is made from brass. There are emergency dials, that could be attached to this end to dial open the lock.

BUT

My guess is, that you need to break open the safe in any case, because the walls will be heavily deformed. And in any case you will need a new safe. To get it open, take some power tools. No finesse necesseary. To get ideas look on youtube. There are enough idiots with "look what I found in that safe" videos, where they break open safes (often destroying the real treasure). I can't say more about this topic in this forum.

What you can do now is to package the contents in a waterproof and sturdy bag or box. It seems the good fireproof safe insulation is based largely on evaporating water. So the inside of your safe will be humid or wet. For this reason you should also try to open it as soon as possible after the fire.

[nothumbs]

Yeah, we plan (hope) to have time to remove the most important stuff. But given the safe is bolted to the concrete floor, and assuming it is damaged, we would need to get it open to unbolt it for removal, hence my posting.

[1d4]

As far as I know, the fire rating of a safe is not impacted by whether it has a mechanical dial or a digital keypad. I believe that one can be swapped out for another without affecting the fire rating.

[nothumbs]

Good to know. I guess what I'm asking about is whether the keypad will be usable if a fire burns the house down. And if not, what is the process for getting the safe open. It appears that if the fire protective feature of the seal swelling from heat kicks in I'm likely to have to do a destructive entry to get the safe open so I can unbolt it from the concrete floor. I guess the same is true if the keypad is damaged/destroyed by the fire. Anyone have experience in dealing with this?

[1d4]

If I were to guess - after a fire, your keypad is going to be toast. Depending on how much heat the safe is actually exposed to - if minimal, I would say that the best possible scenario is that you unplug the old keypad and plug in a new one and open the safe that way. More likely, the entire lock will be damaged, and some sort of destructive measure will need to be taken to open the safe, and you will be replacing the safe. If the conditions of the fire do not exceed what the rating of the safe is for - your items inside should be fine. Keep in mind that a fire safe will keep things like papers and money from being destroyed - the interior of the safe is kept below 350 degrees F for a length of time (1/2 hour, 1 hour, 2 hour, ...) but if you have electronic media such as hard drives or photograph negatives inside the safe, they might be damaged in a fire. To fully protect sensitive media, you need a media safe, which keeps the interior below 125 degrees F for a given period of time. The trade off is that fire safes can offer some amount of burglary protection in addition to fire protection, whereas media safes typically do not offer any burglary protection.

[billdeserthills]

Hollon lifetime guarantee includes free replacement of Hollon safe that is caught in a fire


https://hollonsafe.com/warranty/

[MartinHewitt]

For gun safes (the warranty for these is special in the US):

For safes in the continental United States, Hollon Safe Co will arrange for and cover the shipping costs both to and from the factory and any locksmith costs necessary to open the safe.

But after such an event locksmiths might have to much work meaning the won't come quickly.

[nothumbs]

Good to know about the fire warranty replacement. Not a gun safe.

[Raymond]

Good call Billdeserthills. I was just going to suggest the same about the warranty.

I would recommend changing to a mechanical lock anyway. Several times I have had to open vaults for our military where the dial was broken off. If the spindle is visible and still turning this is usually an easy job. If the dial was melted I would simply drill it off anyway to access the spindle.

The following is just an idea and I have no way to gauge the possible results. Ideas anyone else?
The best decision for the safe owner is to clean out the safe before evacuating. There should be some warning to put you on notice so just pack it at that time.

Then, unlock the safe and leave the door closed. If it is a mechanical safe dial simply do not spin to scramble the lock. This way you can instantly open the door when you return by only turning the handle. If you must lock something, put a chain and padlock around the safe. The chain will be much easier to cut.

If it is an electronic safe dial, and depending on the brand, you could remove the keypad and push most of the wire back into the hole. Attach something that wont burn to the wire to pull it out with again. Fill the spindle hole with high temp putty, mud, or silicone that can be dug out later. Then, when returning, dig out the wire, attach to the keypad, and open the safe. We hope that the higher temps won't cook the lock's electronics.

Just some thoughts.

[MartinHewitt]

Not bad your ideas. With the unlocked lock I would check if the bolt work could move accidentally to the open position by gravity. It would be a total disaster if the bolt work got open in a fire.

[L4R3L2]

If your safe is insulated with drywall and you live in a wildfire area, I HIGHLY suggest you get a concrete/mortar-filled fire safe as soon as possible. The reports from the locksmith I was working for at the time was that the only safe he saw where the contents somewhat survived the Paradise fires was an Amsec fire safe. Only a UL fire rated safe has a chance at enduring an inferno. There's a reason gypsum-lined safes are not UL rated for fire.

[billdeserthills]

If your safe is insulated with drywall and you live in a wildfire area, I HIGHLY suggest you get a concrete/mortar-filled fire safe as soon as possible. The reports from the locksmith I was working for at the time was that the only safe he saw where the contents somewhat survived the Paradise fires was an Amsec fire safe. Only a UL fire rated safe has a chance at enduring an inferno. There's a reason gypsum-lined safes are not UL rated for fire.

The gypsum lined safes I have seen were only rated for 20-30 minutes in a fire

[L4R3L2]

The gypsum lined safes I have seen were only rated for 20-30 minutes in a fire

UL rated? I see gypsum lined safes claiming up to 2 hours "in-house" or "independent" tested for fire all the time.

Gypsum (drywall/sheetrock) and concrete fill work by the same principle, but drywall shrinks under heat and creates seams or even collapse that allows heat intrusion in a short period of time. Beware of "in-house" or "independent" testing. Only UL carries an industry accepted certification. Personally, I would take a 1-hour UL rated safe over a 120 minute "independent lab" tested safe any day. My gun safe is drywall-lined, but I accept that for now as I live in city limits with a fire department nearby. When I can, I will be switching to a filled safe because of what I have learned.

Keep in mind, though, that any fire protection offered through calcination (the property of drywall and concrete that provides fire protection) degrades through carbonation over time. A very old safe will not be as reliable as a relatively newer safe for fire protection.

[nothumbs]

It's a Hollon FB-685, reasonably recent purchase.