Wall Safes and Fireproofing After the Los Angeles Fires — The BlumSafe Professional

BlumSafe recently exhibited at the gigantic IBS 2025 national homebuilders show in Las Vegas, where we had the privilege of meeting many custom homebuilders, closet and cabinetry designers, and home architects and designers. These trades professionals are an increasing part of the BlumSafe audience, as they seek products to provide their higher-end customers with built-in design features that bring value – like the BlumSafe.

Anyway, since the show was in Vegas, many trade professionals from southern California were in attendance. Reeling from the recent catastrophic fires in and around Los Angeles, many were coming to us for built-in fireproofed safes, namely, our BlumSafe Professional. Whether their customers sought them because their insurance companies demanded fireproofing or simply for their own piece of mind, “fireproofing” was the word we heard over and over.

What is Special About the BlumSafe Professional?

This brings me to describe what is special about BlumSafe’s fire-resistant offering, the BlumSafe Professional – which, by the way, is made in the USA.

When we chose to create this safe, we wanted it to be unique to the market, with  Class B Burglary security, a strong fire-resistant envelope, and internal capacity in a built-in safe that you would not find anywhere. We achieved the objective.

Features include:

• Available fireproofing (more on that below).
• The largest interior volume built-in Class B burglary safe we could find on the market – interior dimensions of 13 3/4” wide X 35 3/4” tall and 9 1/8” of usable depth (with the door closed).
• Our interior is not just big, but its uniquely modular and configurable for watch winders, jewelry drawers, shelves, necklace racks, tactical accessory grids, mirrors, etc. Customers can change and add to the interior any time after installation, as their needs change, and 
• The Professional is built to Class B insurance company standards with ½” thick solid steel doors (before fireproofing) and ¼” solid steel walls (more steel usually equals more security), and a range of other security features including UL-listed locking mechanism (available with dial, keypad or keypad/fingerprint options),  dead bar/continuous channel that locks the door into the safe body as you shut it (if someone removes the hinges they still cannot open the door),  multiple relocker mechanisms, slip clutch handle feature, hardened steel and ball bearing double hard plate protection for the locking mechanism.

And the Fireproofing.

Because we build wall safes, we offer both fire-resistant and non-fire-resistant versions of the BlumSafe Professional. Let me explain.

A typical free-standing safe is exposed to the environment (and fire) on all sides, so built-in fireproofing is required on all sides. A built-in safe, on the other hand, is installed in a cavity, an envelope in the wall, cabinetry, or closetry. This enclosure can provide significant added delay and protection against the safe’s internal contents reaching a critical heat point (typically, safes are tested to a 350-degree Fahrenheit heat point, the charring point of paper). The slower it takes to get to the target temperature inside the safe, the greater the odds of the fire department arriving and putting water on the situation, bringing the temperature down, and putting out the fire – or of the fire burning out.

So we offer a fireproof and a non-fireproof version of Professional in case you want to save a couple of dollars (and the strain on your tradespeoples’ backs) and build out your own fireproofing solution  by adding several layers of fireboard to the  wall/closet envelope (all our Professional safe doors, even on the non-fireproofed version, are equipped with fireproofing).

The Fireproofed Version of the BlumSafe Professional.

That being said, you can also simply purchase the fireproofed version of the BlumSafe Professional and either completely rely on our fireproofing along with your wall and closet material or add to it with your own additional layer(s) of fireproofing in the wall/closet envelope.

Our fireproof solution provides significant protection, tested with six sensor locations to maintain the safe at or below 350 degrees for up to 57 minutes in a 1200-degree inferno. But these test numbers understate the level of protection the Professional receives, when installed in a home. This is because when our safes are tested, they are put in a furnace by themselves, exposed on all sides to flame (as a freestanding safe would be, in a house fire). In the test furnace our safes are NOT tested in real-world conditions – i.e., they are not placed in an enclosure like a wall or closet cavity which, as we indicated above, can be expected to slow down the fire’s encroachment on your safe, even if there are no fireproofing properties added to your enclosure. Most fire safes have 2-3 layers of installed fireboard (a form of drywall). So think of it this way — putting the BlumSafe Professional in a closet, without adding any additional layers of fireboard, gives you an additional two layers of protection, effectively creating a fire safe inside a fire safe, significantly increasing that 57 minutes you have until help arrives. And that is BEFORE you may choose to add another layer or two of fireboard around the safe.

Further, since most customers include in their build of our safes some concealment aspect, they often also add a fire resistant concealment door to the front of their BlumSafes, further adding to the fire protection of the front of the safe as well. We have seen hinged pictures, mirrors, wine racks, even electrical boxes mounted over our safes to conceal their existence (concealment is the BEST form of security), and all of these solutions permit the addition of another layer of fireproofing.

Two Notes: When you consider whether to get the fireproofed version of the BlumSafe, note that some insurance agents will require that your safe have pre-installed fireproofing on all sides, with a fireproofing test.

Watches are Not Paper. One last caveat for watch collectors. As we have noted before in this blog post, almost all safe fireproofing is tested to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, the char point of paper, but watches degrade at around only 180 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning that your fire protection actually protects your watches for much less time than stated. So please, don’t underinsure your watch collection.

You can learn more about our US-manufactured BlumSafe Professionals here.

Thank you.