That $40 'fireproof' cash safe melted my emergency stash in a garage fire

Last fall my shop caught fire in Boone, NC and the cheap cash safe I kept my emergency $500 in turned into a blob. The bills came out charred and the bank only swapped maybe $80 worth. Anybody know a decent fire-rated box that actually holds up without breaking the cash-only budget?

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avery_carr5717d ago

My buddy Kevin had the same thing happen back in 2019, his trailer caught fire over in Morganton and the sentimental stuff he kept in one of those cheap Sentry safes came out looking like a melted hockey puck. He told me the ONLY thing that survived was a laminated copy of his kids' birth certificates, and the cash inside was just gone, black and crumbly. When he finally got a real fire safe, a friend at the fire station told him to look for the UL 350 rating or better, because most cheap boxes only survive 15 minutes at like 1200 degrees. He ended up going with a used one off Craigslist, an old Amsec, and paid like $60 for it. It's heavy as hell but after that, he swears he'll never cheap out on that again.