Fire-resistant cabinets are designed to protect valuable documents and data against the devastating effects of a fire. A distinction is made between cabinets for paper and cabinets for digital media: paper reaches its critical temperature at around 170 °C, while digital media such as hard drives and backup tapes are damaged from around 55 °C. A cabinet that protects paper perfectly may still lose your digital data.
The range includes fire-resistant filing cabinets for large volumes of paper, document cabinets for office use, and data safes for digital media. Every model is tested and certified to recognised European fire standards, offering 30 to 120 minutes of protection. Unlike a fire-resistant safe, burglary resistance is not a requirement here: everything is focused on fire protection.
Which type and standard suit your situation, how these cabinets differ from a fire-resistant safe, and which models nevertheless carry a burglary rating: you'll find it all below.
The difference between a fire-resistant cabinet and a fire-resistant safe comes down to what the construction is built to do: the safe combines fire protection with full burglary certification, while the cabinet puts everything into fire protection. For archives, administration and documents where fire is the real risk, that makes it the logical and usually more economical choice. High-quality security locks also restrict unauthorised access and information theft.
With fire-resistant cabinets, the tested protection time is what counts: 30, 60 or 120 minutes. Under the lighter standards, the test simply ends when time is up; the strictest ones, such as EN 1047-1, add a drop test and a natural cooling phase — which matters, because a cabinet stays hot for hours after a real fire. Be wary of cabinets marked only "DIN 4102 compliant": that standard rates the material, not the protection of the contents. Such sturdy, lockable cabinets certainly have their place, and we do offer them — but honestly labelled as security cabinets, not as fire-resistant ones. The full overview is on our page about fire resistance standards and test methods.
A fire-resistant filing cabinet is the answer for large volumes of paper: drawers instead of shelves, built to carry a complete archive through a fire. Digital data demands more: data safes certified S60DIS or S120DIS keep the internal temperature low enough for hard drives, backup tapes and other sensitive media. A few models combine their fire protection with a burglary rating (S1, S2 or higher) — recognisable by the class symbol on the product photo. And for server equipment that needs to stay operational and protected day in, day out, there are dedicated server safes and IT safes.
The range of fire-resistant cabinets runs from compact document cabinets for home or office to multi-drawer filing cabinets and large data safes for professional use. Every cabinet is delivered and installed by our own team — the full process is described on our delivery and installation page.
Also storing chemicals, aerosols or lithium-ion batteries? Different standards and different cabinets apply: discover our safety cabinets for hazardous products and batteries.