Environmental Chemistry Related to Forest Fires and Fire Extinguishers

In recent years, large-scale forest fires and wildfires have become an increasingly major problem globally. In addition to the devastating damage inflicted by the fires, the use of harmful fire extinguishing agents has also caused serious environmental problems. Forest fires also constitute an environmental problem in terms of the generation of deleterious products, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins, as well as the disappearance of forests. Herein, based on examples of forest fires in Japan, we describe the chemical properties of fire extinguishing agents and flame retardants that potentially cause environmental problems, as well as prospects for new technologies that are both effective and environmentally-benign.