When objects are moved where they are hiding, they dart out and seek new hiding places. Large numbers may be found in new buildings where the walls are still damp from plaster and green lumber. The firebrat is quick moving and lives in dark places above 90 degrees F such as around ovens, furnaces, boiler rooms and fireplaces or insulation around hot water and heat pipes. These insects follow pipelines from the basement to rooms on lower floors, living in bookcases, around closet shelves, behind baseboards and behind window or door frames. They are hardy and can live without food for many months.
Bristletails prefer to eat vegetable matter.
Outdoors, they can be found under rocks, bark and leaf mold, and in ant, termite, bird and animal nests. Silverfish females may lay over 100 eggs during a lifetime. Eggs are laid singly or two to three at a time in small groups, hatching in three to six weeks. Young silverfish and firebrats resemble adults except being smaller, white and take on the adult color in four to six weeks. Adults may live two to eight years.