My guns. My way.
“Thank God I had a Browning Safe.”
Wayne’s Browning Safe outperformed its fire rating and protected dozens of his treasured firearms.
Wayne and his wife Nancy had made an agreement: He’d care for his hunting dog and she’d care for the new rescue poodle she’d spontaneously adopted. But one night in October 2022, when Nancy’s dog was uncharacteristically barking around 2:30 a.m., Wayne whispered, “You stay here, I’ll check on her.”
That gesture quite possibly saved his wife’s life.
A miraculous save
As Wayne made his way through the house, he didn’t find anything amiss until he stepped into the mudroom. At the top corner of the fireproof door that led to his garage, he noticed a tiny string of smoke—but just as he reached out his hand to open the door, a loud crash startled him.
Fortunately, he pulled back.
Wayne didn’t realize how massive the fire was that was raging behind that door. The noise he’d heard was his entire garage door falling onto his two vehicles, which were fully engulfed in flames. Had he opened the mudroom door, the added oxygen would have sent a deadly backdraft right where he was standing. And if Nancy had been there instead, Wayne is certain she would have opened that door.
“That's how close we came to one of us losing our life,” he says.
Wayne would learn that the drill battery he’d left charging on his workbench had exploded. He and Nancy now consider it their ministry to warn others of this risk: “We have told so many people not to leave the battery on the charger.”
A devastating loss
Minutes later, Wayne, Nancy, and their pets were standing together on the street. They were safe, but they watched helplessly as four fire departments tried to save their garage, which was fully engulfed in 20-foot flames.
By morning, both of their two-car garages had burned to the ground and, while their home was still standing, every square inch of the indoor space was coated in a black, sticky soot.
Had his family heirlooms survived?
While Wayne and Nancy scrambled to catch their breath and find a place to live, one thing weighed on Wayne’s mind: Had the firearms in his Browning Safe survived the fire?
Wayne had two gun safes in his garage, both sitting right next to the workbench. One was a Browning Safe, the other was a Liberty—and most of the guns in his Browning Safe were heirlooms.
“All of us in my family, on both sides of the family, have always been very active sportsmen and hunters,” says Wayne. “I grew up on a horse with a gun in my hand.” He’d collected a large number of guns over the years, many of which are family heirlooms, including his father’s and great-grandfathers’ guns.
Now his safes sat in a pile of rubble, and he was anxious to look inside. But while his insurance team inspected the remains, Wayne was told he had to wait.
“I was as nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” he says.
“I had a lot of guns and a lot of memories in there.”
“Do you believe in your safe?”
As the days ticked by, Wayne decided to call Browning Safes. He wondered if they thought his firearms would have survived.
“I called them up and said, ‘Do you believe in your safe?’”
“I told him absolutely we believe in our safe,” says Tyler Jex, the customer service rep Wayne spoke to at Browning Safes. “Not only did we believe in it, but we asked Wayne if we could send a crew to film the opening of his safe. We were certain his guns would be safe and sound.”
Wayne agreed.
The big reveal
Finally, on November 15, 2022—two weeks after the fire—Wayne and Brent Vogler, his local Browning Safes rep, stood in the charred garage and began to open the safes.
Two feet behind them were the burned out remains of Wayne’s 1974 Ford Bronco, the beloved vehicle he and his family had hunted in for over 50 years. The garage fire was so hot it had melted the aluminum tailgate and doors clean off the Bronco. Brent knew that a fire hot enough to melt aluminum had to have been at least 1221 degrees Fahrenheit—and the Browning Safe was rated only to 1200 degrees for 30 minutes.
Finally, on November 15, 2022—two weeks after the fire—Wayne and Brent Vogler, his local Browning Safes rep, stood in the charred garage and began to open the safes.
Could Wayne’s Browning Safe have provided protection beyond its fire rating? They were about to find out.
When Brent pried open the safe, Wayne gasped. It was almost too good to be true.
“My guns were all protected.”
All of Wayne’s heirloom firearms were fully intact. Even his paper box filled with ammunition was unscathed.
“As the safe door was opened I was holding my breath,” says Wayne. “When I saw that my heirlooms had been protected, my eyes were filled with tears of relief.”
Sure enough, the Browning Safe had far outperformed its fire rating. In fact, the insurance investigator said the drill battery likely sparked an explosion of 1800 degrees, just steps from the Browning Safe.
The Browning Safe had easily withstood that heat.
It turns out the only damage to Wayne’s firearms was caused by the two-week delay before opening the safe. His guns had suffered from sitting in the moist air after the fire, and all of his old guns needed rebluing. But none of his heirlooms were beyond repair.
As for the guns in Wayne’s second safe, which was not a Browning?
“They did not fare so well,” says Wayne. “They had more problems with the wood, which had charred more. And some of the items in that safe were blackened from the soot.”
“I can’t imagine ever having anything but a Browning Safe.”
It took almost two years before Wayne and Nancy were able to move back into their restored home—and, once they did, one of the first things Wayne set up was a brand new Browning Safes Platinum 65 Tall that could hold all of his guns at once.
“I have always trusted Browning products and my Dad did too,” says Wayne. “The way the safe performed in the fire has even further convinced me that Browning products are the best money can buy.”
Bigger. Better.
Browning.
See for yourself why no safe is better
than a Browning Safe.
What was in Wayne's Browning Safe?
Here’s what my Browning Safe protected in the fire:
- My great grandfather’s 22 rifle
- My dad’s leather muzzleloader pouch
- Important documents
- Family photos
- Other supplies that I treasured
“I only wish I’d had a Browning safe large enough to park my 1974 Bronco in. My Bronco was given to me by my dad after he retired from hunting. He and I had spent countless hours in the Bronco while hunting for deer, turkey, birds, and basically anything that had a season. Although it had carried me and my dad through some of the roughest terrain you can imagine, it was not able to survive a fire that exceeded 1800 degrees. I lost the Bronco but I’ll never lose the memories. Thankfully, I still have the items that were in the Browning Safe that were my dad’s.”
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