Buying a fire safe is often a major investment for individuals and businesses. With so much choice available we have developed the guide below in order to aid you in your search.
Types of fire safes
Listed below are the various categories of fire safes which have all been designed with the primary purpose of protecting contents from the threat of fire.
Please note that Document Fire Safes, Fire Filing Cabinets and Fire Protection Cabinets protect only paperwork from the damaging effects of fire. They do not provide sufficient protection for computer or data media. Data Fire Safes are designed specifically to protect CDs, DVDs, data tapes and photo negatives from fire.
Level of protection required
All fire safes carry a fire rating. This fire rating refers to the duration in minutes that contents within a safe will remain protected from the damaging effects of excessive heat and fire. Ratings are broken down into increments of 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 minutes.
When you begin looking for a fire safe it is important to decide what it is you wish to protect, be it documents or data. Document safes are not suitable for protecting data. The reason for this is due to the different temperatures at which paper and data corrupts, whereas paper chars / combusts at 177°C data corrupts at 52°C.
Many of the fire safes listed cannot be bolted down. Those which are suitable to be fixed are listed under Cash & Fire Protection.
Locking options
As standard, fire safes will be fitted with either a key lock or an electronic (digital) lock.
Which lock option to choose ultimately falls down to personal preference; what you will feel more comfortable and confident using.
For detailed information on locks please refer to Familiar Asked Questions.
Size
Both the external and internal dimensions of a safe will need consideration to ensure that it will fit where you want it located, and also that you will have enough internal space to store your contents. It can often be helpful to measure the largest item you will place in the safe in order to get a sense of the minimum dimensions you require.
On all of the Phoenix Data Safes we have attached capacity charts listing the different forms of data media, such as CDs, DLT and LTO tapes, and the total which can be stored in each safe model.
Approximate imperial / metric conversions:
1” = 25mm
1ft = 304mm
Testing standards
Below are the main certification bodies recognised in the safe and insurance industry that run rigorous fire tests. All Phoenix and Alpha fire safes have been tested and certified to one or more of the tests below.
SP
SP is an independent research institute in Sweden which tests and certifies fire resistant safes. The certification is based on the Nordtest (NT Fire 017) which focuses on fire endurance. Safes and cabinets are tested in furnaces in temperatures up to and over 945°C.
UL
The Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is an independent testing house based in America. Any safe which has been certified by the UL has been tested against and met the UL 72 testing standard. The testing standard looks at impact, explosion and fire endurance.
KIS (Korean Industrial Standard) Fire Test
The KS G 4500-180 test certificate requires a safe to be heated to over 1122°C for 3 hours, the internal temperature must not rise above 177°C.
