Somebody around here stated that Perception does not affect searching... or at least, for sure, not its range. It's always one square away.
Fire protection and the ring of searching are not that hard to come by (I even get these generated in Attnam shop quite often). The real problem is equipment explosion.
Fire? "Duh, I'm protected!"
Wand of polymorph explodes! "Oops, I'm a mushroom now!"
Wand of striking explodes! "Shit."