Regarding drywall as a fire barrier, not only is it not a very good heat/fire barrier for a safe, but wouldn't there also be a concern that if the safe took any physical abuse or shock, the sheetrock could break & crumble, reducing it's already minimal effectiveness?
I realize the space where the sheetrock is packed is probably pretty tight, but I've heard claims it can still crumble if cracked or broken, and work it's way down leaving open areas?
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Mav223 Stated:
I have seen many that have...and helped to design the repairs for a couple. One example is a reinforced concrete parking deck where a vehicle fire caused the concrete above to spall and eventually resulted in a failure and partial collapse.
But isn't the temperature and heat intensity substantially higher in a case such as you described, especially when hydrocarbons are involved (auto fire)? I work in a large refinery, and in 1989 we had a big fire (burned for ~3 days), which resulted in a Nationwide change requiring the use of Nomex coveralls for anyone entering a refinery plant. There were very thick piping systems (operating at 3,000 PSI and 1,000°F) that were melted in to a mangled mess that looked like speghetti (a reactor also fell over). The heat was very intense to say the least. Point is, can the normal fuel source in a residential fire create such heat?
(FWIW, in the Bay Area, we recently had a gasoline tanker overturn & catch fire, totally destroying the concrete overpass above it. Totally destroyed. That fire must have been VERY Hot, LOL. Took several weeks to repair this major overpass...)
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In the refinery we I work, we have many steel structures (overhead pipeways) that have a fire protection coating on the steel structures(looks kind of like a soft stucco), I'm going to learn more about that stuff, just for my own education...