Reminder - important documents

A FB friend’s parents’ home just burned down. The parents had their important documents in a supposedly fire-resistant metal box, but the box was badly damaged and so were the papers inside. Parents had refused to get a safety deposit box or have any other storage method (copies on a hard drive elsewhere, in the cloud), etc. Everything was hard copy only and it’s gone. Same with family photos. No one had scans.

So just make sure your plan of saving important papers has redundancy and nothing in the same place.

I have been to perhaps a 20 house and business fires in which there was a "fire-resistant" box or safe involved.

In only one case did the documents survive a fully-involved structure fire. The time period that the building is cooking off and cooking during overhaul is simply too long for most of the rating levels. In the fire where the commercial fire-resistant safe *did* survive, we went in actively *during* the fire to pull out the safe, but I suspect it wouldn't have lasted the entire duration of the incident if we had left it there.

In several cases, a "fire-resistant" box/safe *did* save the contents in a simple room-and-contents fire, but the time period involved is quite a bit lower.

I keep my own important things in decently-rated boxes/envelopes/safes, but I don't expect them to survive a full-on fire here, so I keep copies on the cloud, and in my bank safe deposit box.

Also, please, if your house is seriously on fire(*), don't dork around trying to save any contents of your home, get the heck out as fast as you can, closing all doors to interior compartments of the home on your way out.

(*) That is, if your well-placed fire extinguisher doesn't do the job instantly....

We have a useless safe in our house is never locked. It is annoying that I could never convince DH to keep things in a bank vault.


But now that we have digital files and copies etc. I have digital copies of most things.

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Originally Posted by bae

I have been to perhaps a 20 house and business fires in which there was a "fire-resistant" box or safe involved.

In only one case did the documents survive a fully-involved structure fire. The time period that the building is cooking off and cooking during overhaul is simply too long for most of the rating levels. In the fire where the commercial fire-resistant safe *did* survive, we went in actively *during* the fire to pull out the safe, but I suspect it wouldn't have lasted the entire duration of the incident if we had left it there.

In several cases, a "fire-resistant" box/safe *did* save the contents in a simple room-and-contents fire, but the time period involved is quite a bit lower.

I keep my own important things in decently-rated boxes/envelopes/safes, but I don't expect them to survive a full-on fire here, so I keep copies on the cloud, and in my bank safe deposit box.

Also, please, if your house is seriously on fire(*), don't dork around trying to save any contents of your home, get the heck out as fast as you can, closing all doors to interior compartments of the home on your way out.

(*) That is, if your well-placed fire extinguisher doesn't do the job instantly....

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Thanks, Bae! I figured you would probably have some good input on the topic!

My biggest concern regarding critical papers are my tax filings and my password vault. Both are backed up in the cloud and the password vault also exits on my phone so as long as I take that with me when I leave the house we will be fine. Most photos have been scanned but aren’t backed up anywhere other than an external drive stored at home. Maybe I need to take care of that. I could probably set up a secondary Dropbox account for that using a different email address.

My tax filings are all done digitally on TurboTax’s website. I pay the $40 per year for filing so a lot of info carries over and they keep everything, as well as me having the digital files here. My password vault is on my phone and controlled by Apple ID, so as long as I can remember that, I’m fine

When I finish up every year, I make sure to email myself a copy of the various Turbotax files, as an extra layer of defense.

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Originally Posted by bae

When I finish up every year, I make sure to email myself a copy of the various Turbotax files, as an extra layer of defense.

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That’s a good idea!

I don’t try to protect an archive of tax filings. Wouldn’t the IRS have copies available if I needed them?


I don’t keep anything of significance in the cloud. All passwords to our financial accounts is on a thumb drive with a paper print out. We keep track of the paper print out and thumb drive. That’s probably excessively paranoid, but… To me, those are the only things that are really not available publicly. We keep it in a bag in a convenient place and we would grab it if possible. If not possible, I’m not sure it’s all that hard to re-create.

My state does not have abstracts for real estate. Those were very expensive and precious documents in Iowa, but not here.

I have digital copies of everything and all I plan to take in a fire is my dogs, purse and medication.

I remember reading in an article about the Lahaina fire that a couple had $50K in cash in a supposedly fire proof box. Gone!

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I don’t try to protect an archive of tax filings. Wouldn’t the IRS have copies available if I needed them?


I don’t keep anything of significance in the cloud. All passwords to our financial accounts is on a thumb drive with a paper print out. We keep track of the paper print out and thumb drive. That’s probably excessively paranoid, but… To me, those are the only things that are really not available publicly. We keep it in a bag in a convenient place and we would grab it if possible. If not possible, I’m not sure it’s all that hard to re-create.

My state does not have abstracts for real estate. Those were very expensive and precious documents in Iowa, but not here.

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I wouldn’t count on a thumb drive being the only electronic backup. I hear lots of horror stories about those going bad. An extra hard drive might be a good second option.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

I wouldn’t count on a thumb drive being the only electronic backup. I hear lots of horror stories about those going bad. An extra hard drive might be a good second option.

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That’s what Is recommended elsewhere, for sure. I just have not got around to it. I consider the real backup to be paper.

Well, I know someone who lost their home in one of the California wildfires. They had about a 20 minute evacuation warning. He took a duffel bag to his standing 600lb safe, and scraped each shelf clean, into the bag. When he was able to access the property 10 days later, there was a molten puddle where the safe had been. He was lucky they were home, could just as easily been off traveling.

For those with dogs, I recommend keeping extra collars and leashes, bowls, food and water in your car. You can get out a lot faster if you just pick up the dog and walk out, instead of locating and putting on collars and leashes.

Bumping this as the California fires are a good reminder.

If we had 20 minutes to leave, I would tell DH to take care of the household financial stuff, and he could do that easily by pulling out our legacy bag, and throwing checkbooks into it. I would get the animals situated and in the car, Two cats and a dog. Throw Ipads and phone into backpack. If time left I would run upstairs and get clothes and throw medications into a bag. We could do it in 20 minutes.

I doubt I would worry about any animal food or their medicines since everything they get is easily available elsewhere.

if I was thinking straight, which I probably would not be in that situation, I would grab my own car keys to my fun car and take off in it while DH drove himself and the animals out.

The LA fires have spurred my to finally sit down and do a complete inventory of our household contents, especially living where I do in the high desert. There have been countless fires in our village since I have moved here. One was in a cabin uncomfortably close to us two years ago.

We do have a safe deposit box that has important stuff in it. My task is to put this household inventory on a flash drive and put it in the safe deposit box. I can also scan important documents and put those on the flash drive. as well.

I certainly need an involved project to do, as I have a lot of time these days (still not working).

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Originally Posted by SiouzQ.

The LA fires have spurred my to finally sit down and do a complete inventory of our household contents, especially living where I do in the high desert. There have been countless fires in our village since I have moved here. One was in a cabin uncomfortably close to us two years ago.

We do have a safe deposit box that has important stuff in it. My task is to put this household inventory on a flash drive and put it in the safe deposit box. I can also scan important documents and put those on the flash drive. as well.

I certainly need an involved project to do, as I have a lot of time these days (still not working).

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Take a video , too. Open every drawer, cupboard, closet, under the beds, etc. You can save that in the cloud.

We have two safety deposit boxes, one here and one near my kids. My kids, husband and I are on both. Wills, copies of all financial statements from accounts, copies of birth, marriage and so on are in both. Plus we have a list of our various accounts, like who our TV, water, electric company and so on are. Plus copies of what meds we are on and MD names. We update each box yearly.

We have had friends who were widowed and had no idea what to do. Or kids who had to clean out deceased or nursing home parents houses.

also, we have a hanging bag in the garage with a couple of changes of clothing, toothbrushes and a few other personal supplies. Plus cash in both boxes. Plus filling gas tanks at 50%.

we live in hurricane area, but you never know what can happen. Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, ice storms. No one is 100% safe.

I cannot imagine what the residents are going through. And the fire fighters must be exhausted physically and psychologically. Where are all these people going to go. Where are they going to work?

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We have had friends who were widowed and had no idea what to do.

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This is one of my worries as DH has very little interest in financial or general household administrative matters. I need to create a step by step list for him in case I disappear first.

One of the most bizarre stories of stuff left behind from the fires. A woman found it easier to budget with cash, so she had $17K in cash at home, per NYT article. She didn't take it with her when evacuating as she was concerned about theft. House burned up anf $17K cash with it. Article said she was already living paycheck to paycheck. Yet she had managed to save $17K.