Abstract: The study shows the environmental characteristics of various substances used for the fires extinguishing. It is specified there is a negative impact on the environment of synthetic foam agents containing the fluorine, the absence of environmentally non-hazardous foam agents. The presence in the environment of a significant amount of decomposition products of fluorine-containing film-forming foams is marked. Some of them belong to persistent organic pollutants and the properties of the most compounds have not been investigated yet. There is a departure from the use of gaseous fire extinguishing agents with ozone-depleting properties-chladones and the ambiguity of the environmental characteristics of the compounds replacing them. For a number of fire-extinguishing compounds informative environmental data are presented a little. And there is search in progress for more environmentally non-hazardous fire-extinguishing compounds. Analysis of the environmental requirements for fire extinguishing substances in a number of countries has shown that for most developed countries there is a trend away from the use of environmentally hazardous fire extinguishing agents which are used for the fires extinguishing of various classes. There is no one universal approach to determining the environmental parameters of fire extinguishing compounds.