Following his trip , Ardeshir continued experimenting with safes , and the business took off following the San Francisco earthquake , where the subsequent fire caused more damage than the earthquake itself . Following the publication a subsequent article in '' Scientific American '' ( 26 May 1908 ) that revealed that most safes were in fact not fireproof , Ardeshir held a public demonstration to prove that the safes would protect the contents in the advent of a fire . The demonstration was a resounding success , but it would not be until the Calcutta Dharamtalla Street fire of April 1925 when the safes demonstrated their worth in that conflagration . The supreme test came in 1944 , eight years after Ardeshir 's death . The fires that resulted from an ammunition explosion at Bombay 's Victoria docks raged for days , and the loss of life and property was enormous , but the contents in many of the Godrej safes survived , including one belonging to a bank
San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Ardeshir Godrej