The Carr Wildfire in California
The Carr fire tore through portions of California this past July. It was started by a flat tire when the rim scraped the asphalt and sparked a fire in the brush near the road. That small spark grew to be a deadly inferno that would become the 6th most destructive wildfire in the history of California.
Two friends — Luke and Brett — were both out of town, vacationing with their families, when the fire hit, and both lost everything to the flames. Luke owned a Liberty Safe. Brett owned a competitor’s safe.
When Luke returned to the ashes of his home and opened his safe, he was couldn’t believe what he saw. Despite the fact that the California fire had burned hot enough to reduce everything else in his home to ashes and rubble, the valuables in his safe were intact.
His guns, pictures, important documents, jewelry, and even his kids’ beloved Elf on a Shelf had been protected from the fire. “Paper made it, photo books of kids, my wife’s grandmother’s wedding ring was intact…” Luke says. “A lot of the special items that we had as a family we were able to recover.”
Brett, however, wasn’t so lucky. His safe wasn’t a Liberty, and all of its contents were completely destroyed. A friend of the two men wrote, “Luke’s safe was a Liberty Safe and had done the job it was designed to do.”
Luke and his family have a lot of work ahead of them to remove the rubble from the fire and rebuild their home. But they're so grateful to have some of their most treasured items to hang onto as they move forward, thanks to their fire resistant safe box.
“I recommend anybody to buy a Liberty Safe,” says Luke. “I don’t know of another safe in this fire of a thousand plus homes that I’ve been told about that made it or fared as well as ours did.”
For more stories about how Liberty Safes survive California wildfires and other disasters, please read Scott’s “Withstanding the Flames” story or the Hester fire story.
VIEW OUR SPECIALS Which Safe is Right For You? TAKE THE QUIZ