Fire-resistant safes put to the test: Popular brands First Alert, SentrySafe investigated

TULSA - Fires destroy homes every year. In Oklahoma, wildfires charred more than 300 homes in August in Creek County alone.

The 2NEWS Investigators put six of the most common home fire-resistant safes to the test to help you decide the best way to protect your most important items.

Jason Lawless is one of the hundreds of people who recently lost virtually everything to the Creek County wildfires.

View a photo gallery of the wildfire damage. Follow this link on mobile -- http://bit.ly/okfirephotos

"When we came back there was nothing standing anywhere on the structure, except the fire place. The rock fireplace," said Lawless.

He and his family did take some things with them from the house.

"I grabbed my most expensive rifles and a couple of sentimental shotguns that were handed down to me and left a lot of stuff in there just thinking, 'well it's not really going to happen'," said Lawless.

He says he left behind a large fire-resistant safe full of valuables.

"We got it open and everything inside was completely burned up," said Lawless.  "There [were] no signs of paper work, the stocks on the guns had burned."

Mannford officials say the Lawless family is not alone.

While there's no way to replicate a "typical wildfire," the 2NEWS Investigators teamed up with the Tulsa Fire Department, putting fire-resistant safes to our own unscientific test.

View pictures from our unscientific test.  Follow this link on mobile -- http://bit.ly/firesafetests

"This will simulate as close as we can to the timespan of us going to the fire scene and making a difference on that structure fire," said Stacy Belk, chief of fire training at the Tulsa Fire Department.

Fire officials say their firefighters usually arrive on scene within six minutes of getting the call.

Six fire-resistant safes were purchased, ranging in price from $20 to $50 and commonly sold in area stores.  Two brands were tested -- First Alert and SentrySafe:

1. First Alert 2013F (small)
2. First Alert 2030F (medium)
3. First Alert 2037F (large)
4. SentrySafe 1200 (small)
5. SentrySafe HD2100 (medium)
6. SentrySafe HD4100 (large)

 

All six safes carry the mark from nationally recognized Underwriters Laboratories, which is one of several companies approved by the U.S. government to perform independent safety testing on thousands of products, including these types of safes.

When Underwriters Laboratories tests the safes they essentially use a large furnace and gradually raise the temperature around the safe.

They don't try and replicate a house or a wildfire, instead they guarantee that each test is consistent and uniform.

In our test, we aimed to replicate a basic house fire at the Tulsa Fire Department's training facility.

Inside each safe we placed typical items you might store in a safe -- 10 sheets of paper, a working DVD, a working flash drive and a working cellphone.

We numbered the safes one through six and we placed a metal house number inside each safe to accurately identify the safes after the test. We locked each safe with the keys.

Tulsa firefighters then loaded the safes inside the training facility and suited up.

Our photographer stayed inside the training lab for about 10 minutes with camera rolling. 

Also inside, an infrared camera captured footage.

The results, coming up, but first a closer look at our safes.

The three First Alert safes say they're fire resistant for 30 minutes up to an outside temperature of 1550 degrees Fahrenheit. All three say they're waterproof and they protect media like DVDs and CDs.

The three SentrySafes all list standard fire protection of a half hour at 1550 degrees Fahrenheit. The medium and large SentrySafes also list verified fire protection of digital media and both of these SentrySafes offer water protection.

In our test, the safes remained inside for 30 minutes.

The infrared camera showed the temperature varied but the fire topped out at only 1217 degrees Fahrenheit. Far below the maximum 1550 degrees Fahrenheit listed on all of the safes.    

When it was over the keys wouldn't unlock the safes.

During our test, all safes remained visually intact for approximately 20 minutes.

At some point during the 30 minute test, the fire melted a hole through the top of safe three, the large First Alert safe. However, everything inside stayed intact.

The papers, the DVD, the flash drive, the cellphone and metal house number all came out in good working condition.

Safes four and five, the small and medium SentrySafes, popped open toward the end of our test.

"Probably about the third time we had rollover, we saw a couple of the cases open up," said Tulsa Fire Capt. Chad Foster. "Probably about 20 minutes in."

In safe four, the small SentrySafe, the papers burned, the DVD warped and the flash drive couldn't be found.

In safe five, the medium SentrySafe, the papers burned and the DVD came out unusable but the flash drive still worked.

Phones fell out of safes four and five, the small and medium Sentry Safes. We couldn't tell which phone was which after the test, but one did turn on. Both metal numbers held up.

Three of the six safes performed very well in our test -- safe one, the small First Alert; safe two, the medium First Alert; and safe six, the large SentrySafe . All of the materials we placed inside were intact and working.

We reached out to both companies for a response.

First Alert responded with the following statement:

All First Alert branded safes are designed and developed and tested to meet or exceed the UL fire rating standards.  We are pleased to learn that in your testing with the local Fire Department that all of the First Alert products provided adequate fire protection in these fire situations created by the Fire Department.   First Alert products are there to help protect what matters most to the consumer.

SentrySafe questioned both the accuracy of our test and our results:

Thank you for informing us about the non-scientific test you conducted on fire safes with the Tulsa Fire Department. Unfortunately, you refused to provide us with video of the test so that we could evaluate the conditions and methodology that would have affected the performance of the various models and the conclusions you have drawn.  
 
SentrySafe is the market leader in fire and water protection for our customers’ important and irreplaceable documents, valuables and keepsakes. Our strong reputation has been built upon exceeding our customer's expectations for over 80 years. All SentrySafe residential fire-resistant safes are engineered and tested to withstand temperatures experienced during a typical house fire. The performance of our products is verified by independent, third party test organizations, including Underwriter's Laboratories and Intertek, to meet rigorous industry standards.
 
SentrySafe did not participate in the fire testing performed by KJRH.  Consequently, we have no assurance the test conditions that the various fire safes were subjected to were controlled and uniform. In fact, this is the main reason we rely on independent organizations like Underwriter's Laboratories to test our products.
 
SentrySafe firmly stands behind the performance of every product that we sell. We hope that you do not publicize any false impressions about the performance of our products.

In the end, firefighters tell us these types of safes could come in handy in a disaster, but it might be good to consider all of your options.

"Personally, I keep them in a safety deposit box at the bank," said Belk.

Lawless hopes others take away from his experience.    

"I've learned through this experience that fire-resistant are safes just that, just resistant," said Lawless.

Again, all safes visually appeared to hold up for the first 20 minutes of our 30-minute test.

Because every fire is different, our results do not indicate how a safe would react in every house fire.

Underwriters Laboratories did tell us while our test with the fire department gave us a good idea of what could happen in a fire, their test is guaranteed to be performed exactly the same way each time.

Visit Consumer Reports online for more information about fire-resistant safes -- http://bit.ly/crsafes.

Fire experts do tell us the higher in a house you store one of these safes, the better chance it could be damaged in a fire.

The floor is best, preferably under a bed so the mattress can act as extra insulation.