Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The environmental impact of products has been increasingly discussed in recent years. In response to questions of the environmental appropriateness of, for example, technologies used to attain a high level of fire safety, a model has been developed to quantify the emissions from fires and include this into a holistic treatment of the environmental impact of a product from the cradle to the grave. This model is based on Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology but represents a significant improvement over traditional LCA models that cannot include accidents such as fires. The Fire-LCA model has been tested in three case studies: TV, cables, and furniture. This article presents the model in detail, in particular focusing on the difference between the Fire-LCA model and traditional LCA models, using examples from the case studies.