Fire Tests, Ratings and Certs

How do you know what level of protection a fireproof filing cabinet provides? Simple: look for the fire rating.

Every fireproof filing cabinet on the market has some sort of fire rating which tells you:

  • What sort of contents it can protect.
  • How long it can protect them for.

Paper or Data?

Burnt paperDocuments, papers and computer media are perhaps the most common things found in a filing cabinet. Paper is much more resilient to heat damage than USB drives, CDs and hard drives. Computer media are also much more vulnerable to humidity. A filing cabinet designed to protect paper is unlikely to protect computer media.

Filing cabinets designed to only protect paper are usually designated with a “P” (for “paper”). Cabinets designed to protect computer data media are designated “D” (for “data”). Some cabinets might be designated “DIS” – these provide protection for extremely fragile computer diskettes.

Time

A fireproof filing cabinet’s fire rating will also tell you how long it can protect its contents. This is usually given in minutes, with typical protection levels being 30 (half an hour), 60 (1 hour), 90 (1 and a half hours) and 120 (2 hours). In real world circumstances, a filing cabinet may protect its contents for slightly longer than its fire rating states as they are tested at much higher temperatures than those encountered in a typical fire.

Fire Tests and Certificates

UL and SP logosMany fireproof filing cabinets are built to meet national or international fire resistance standards. Such cabinets will be independently tested by a laboratory such as the Underwriters Laboratory in the USA or the SP Institute in Sweden. Some examples of the standard tests carried out on fire proof cabinets include the UL 72, the NT FIRE 017 and the EN 15659 LFS.

Each of these tests varies slightly in how it is performed. However, the basic process involves fitting temperature monitors to several points inside a cabinet before locking it and placing it in a furnace. The furnace is then heated to approximately 1000° Celsius.

For filing cabinets designed to protect paper, the temperature monitors must not go above 177° Celsius, the point at which paper combusts. Cabinets designed to protect data must not register a temperature above 50° Celsius or high humidity levels.

Some tests also involve removing the filing cabinet from the furnace and subjecting it to a drop of around 9 metres. This simulates a building collapse, which commonly occurs during a fire. If the cabinet breaks when dropped, it fails the test.

Other tests involve rapidly heating the cabinet to see if it explodes. This is called an explosive resistance test.

Fireproof filing cabinets that pass these tests are given a certificate by the testing laboratory. Cabinets that have been independently certified in this way offer the very best in fire resistance.

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