Vortex Strikefire Survives Housefire

A normal winter night in January of 2016 for one RECOIL reader turned dangerous. The smell of smoke from the wood stove was normal in the house, but the stench of burning plastic wasn't. He walked into a room just in time to see the breaker box throw a stream of sparks, and the house was evacuated. The fire would burn for more than four hours, and more than a dozen firetrucks were needed to fight the blaze because no municipal water supply was available. Though a lot of possessions were destroyed, including some irreplaceable, thankfully no one was injured.

A small collection of firearms were stored in an inexpensive Stack-On cabinet. Though these can be a deterrent for smash-and-grab thieves and helpful to keep small hands away from guns, housefire-ready they aren't. You can see it in the back-left of the image below:

The Stack-On essentially became an oven. A Taurus 380 completely melted. An AR got hot enough that all of the steel hardware became permanently discolored. The PMag in the magwell distorted enough to render it unusable. The magnifier on the rifle was toast. And the first generation Vortex Strikefire, although a bit melty in places, remained perfectly functional.

So functional in fact that it was still in use until mere days ago. Once Vortex caught wind of the incident, they asked that it be sent in to be examined and replaced. As of right now the optic is in their hands, and surely an upgraded replacement will soon be in the hands of the RECOIL reader.

This isn't the first time an optic has made it through a fire; you may recall an Aimpoint PRO being totally functional after being exposed to a more devastating inferno. And well, we also put a Strikefire II in Peter Palma's hands and he set it on fire (among other abuses).

There were more than 380,000 residential fires in 2015, resulting in nearly 2,000 deaths and 7,500 injuries [source]. While you may debate the merits and utility of a fireproof safe in this instance, afterwards do yourself a favor and check your fire alarms and other measures.