Wartime Fires: Estimating Air Emissions and Atmospheric Damage

What a Fire Produces

Complete combustion of carbon-containing material mainly produces carbon dioxide and water vapour. Real fires also generate carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and other substances depending on temperature, oxygen supply, and material composition. A fuel-storage fire, residential fire, forest fire, and industrial-site fire have different emission profiles. A single universal factor should not be used without explaining which material and process it represents.

Critical Input Data

Assessment collects fire area, duration, asset type, material inventory, estimated mass, fraction burned, and combustion efficiency. Weather conditions, photographs, satellite observations, and fire-service information provide additional evidence. The largest uncertainty often comes from material mass rather than the formula. Mass may be estimated from inventories, tank capacity, building area and construction, stock records, or minimum–maximum scenarios.

Calculating Emission Mass

The general logic is to multiply burned material mass or another activity measure by an emission factor for each pollutant. At a complex site, calculation is performed separately for material groups and then aggregated. Factors need a clear source, unit, and applicability conditions. Factors from different publications should not be combined without checking that they describe the same process and combustion completeness.

Ukrainian Methodology for Monetary Damage

Order No. 175 of 13 April 2022 establishes a method for calculating unorganised emissions caused by emergencies or martial law and for determining monetary damage. It provides pollutant lists, formulas, and economic parameters. An official calculation should use the current version of the method and documented inputs. Communication equivalents such as numbers of cars or trees are not part of the official damage formula and should be presented only as supplementary context.

Emissions and Damage Are Different Metrics

Emission mass describes how much of a substance entered the atmosphere. Monetary damage is a regulatory calculation. Ambient concentration and health risk are separate questions that depend on dispersion, duration, and local conditions. A large CO₂ quantity does not automatically represent the highest local health risk, while a smaller mass of a toxic pollutant may be important near people. These metrics should not be substituted for one another in reports.

Uncertainty, Scenarios, and Verification

A preliminary estimate should use at least a lower and upper scenario. An assumptions table lists area, mass, burned fraction, factors, and sources, revealing which variable controls the result. When new evidence becomes available, the estimate should be updated without hiding earlier versions. Verification compares the estimate with fire reports, satellite-derived area, design documents, material records, and an independent calculation. Air monitoring can describe actual concentrations, but it may not reconstruct the full mass of an emission after the fire has ended.