What burned best in Russia, 2022: analytics and forecasts by Molfar

A good day is the one that starts with explosions and fires in Russian cities. It is even more pleasant to look at the statistics: in just the last two months of 2022, the number of fires in Russia has doubled. Yes, just when Taras Chmut and Igor Lachenkov announced the completion of fundraising for the mysterious "Black Box". Most often, warehouses burned in the Moscow region, and there were also explosions at factories and in shopping malls near the St. Petersburg.

The Molfar team has prepared an article about the largest fires in Russia, the TOP flammable regions of Russia and how often Muscovy will burn this year 🔥

We love to watch Russia burn: how the fragments of the enemy state are gradually smoldering, and the Russians are fussing and writing frightened posts in social networks. And the Russian media will once again write that the workers smoked where they should not have. Molfar counted these "cigarette incidents" – from January 1 to December 31, 2022, fires and explosions were recorded at 414 facilities in Russia. Only in the last two months of last year, the figure increased by an average of 26% per month. Therefore, even according to the most conservative estimates, in May, we will reach 100 fires in Russia!

Flammable objects in Russia: what burned most often?

Most often Russian factories and industrial facilities, shopping and entertainment centers and oil storage facilities were burning. Explosions on Russian gas pipelines were also accompanied by fireworks. Interestingly, the Russian Emergencies Ministry in its reports and statistics for 2021, for example, does not include fires in factories, warehouses, shopping malls. Only if there were explosions during fires. Probably, the statistics for 2022 will be no exception. But we will help them to compile that report.

*Factories, warehouses and shopping malls burned down most often in Russia last year*

Fires broke out at various Russian factories: paint and varnish, textile, chemicals. Even distilleries loved by Russians were burning. For example, in Burmakino on October 10 (when Russia launched a massive missile and "Shahid" shelling of Ukraine), something exploded in a workshop at the military enterprise JSC "6 ARSENAL". This caused a fire on 700 square meters. Then a 33-year-old worker died, and two more employees were hospitalized.

On August 18, a warehouse with ammunition burned in Belgorod. The mayor of the city explained that the fire was caused by a "lens effect in hot weather". It seems that +17 Celsius poses a real danger to the Russian city bordering Ukraine.

In October, a shrimp production workshop caught fire in the Moscow region: 86 people and 29 units of equipment were involved in extinguishing the fire. But it was necessary to call fighting dolphins to save the injured shrimp.

But the best thing was when in December, on the eve of the New Year holidays, a warehouse with alcohol burned in Saratov.

Last year in Russia, there were huge fires, the burning area of which was calculated in thousands of square meters. We have formed our own TOP3 of the largest.

First place. In May, a warehouse caught fire in the Moscow region. The Russian Ministry of Emergencies said that it was burning on an area of 150x170 meters, but in a few hours the fire area amounted to 520 thousand square meters. The warehouse was rented by a publishing house of books and textbooks.
Second place. August, the same Moscow region. The warehouse of the online store Ozon was on fire. The area of fire was 50 thousand square meters.
Third place. February, Ulyanovsk region. A workshop for the production of doors was on fire. The fire burned on 9 thousand square meters.

What types of flammable objects burned most often. As we can see, the number of fires has increased significantly since October. Apparently, also because of the "lens effect". Or maybe because of the "black box effect"?

Every 10th fire in Russia was in Moscow region

*Map of Russia with all regions and the number of fires in 2022*

After analyzing the rating of the most dangerous regions for the lives of Russians (due to constant explosions and fires), their favorite Moscow region burned most often. Of the 414 cases we counted, 40 were in Moscow region. Leningrad region is on the second place. There were 21 objects burning there. The third place in this rating is shared by Belgorod and Novosibirsk regions – 17 fires each. And one fire was not enough for Rostov region to be on the third place in our rating.

*Most often fires occurred in the Moscow region, it leads "flammable regions"*

If you look through these cases by region and analyze what types of buildings burned there most often, we strongly recommend not to invest in warehouses in the Moscow region. As well as to build factories there. The same situation is in the Leningrad region. Residents of Belgorod region will be afraid to live near oil refineries and warehouse hangars.

*What types of buildings and in which regions burned most often*

Russian incident index: what is the dynamics of fires in Russia in 2022?

We would not say that 2022 was a very hot year for Russia – something always burns in Russia. But last year was the top year compared to 2021. And statistics from October are especially pleasing to the eye. Then the number of fires, explosions and fires at various sites exceeded 40 per month. And in December, this number was already a record 66!

According to the article, only 6 fires at military industry facilities were recorded for the entire 2021. In 2022, this number doubled. Refineries and oil storage facilities burned only 11 times in covid 2021, while 24 fires are known for the whole of 2022.

Who can be behind the arsons in Russia?

Option 1. Last December, the former commander of a partisan cell in the Donbas, Volodymyr Zhemchugov, said in an interview that partisan legions, such as Freedom of Russia and Atesh, could be behind the arson attacks on Russian shopping malls and warehouses. Probably, they or recruited Russians were involved in the arsons, in particular, at the Perm Powder Plant and defense enterprises in Dzerzhynsk in May, the August explosion at the Belgorod ammunition depot and the defense industrial complex of JSC "6 ARSENAL" in October.

Option 2. In December, Taras Chmut (the head of the charity fund "Come Back Alive") and blogger Igor Lachenkov announced the completion of fundraising for the mysterious "Black box". Volunteers managed to raise a whopping 230 million hryvnias. The public is not yet told what is in the "black box". But the head of the GUR, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the black box was very effective.

As you can see, the number of fires in Russia has increased since October. At that time, Ukrainians finished the fundraising for the "Black box"

Option 3. There is another way – "secret" – that works effectively remotely. We talked to a person who knows very well how it works. The only thing we can say is that there were numerous cases of using the "secret remote method" in the territories of other countries, when enemy enterprises and factories were destroyed.

How often will it burn in Russia in 2023? Forecast from Molfar

Molfar, analyzing the whole picture of arsons in Russia, calculated that the growth trend of "incidents" in Russia will progress every month. That is, if over the past 2 months there was an average of 64.5 arsons and, according to our forecast, this figure will grow by 26%, then in January we will reach 83 fires per month. And with the most moderate estimates, there will be 100 fires in April. And this is at least!

*Yellow bars indicate the forecast – how often and how many fires will occur in Russia*

How did Molfar prepare this forecast?

1. First, we considered retrospective data and exponential smoothing.

2. We assume that the number of saboteurs on the territory of Russia will not decrease. And after the Russians will increasingly observe Russia's regular losses in the war in Ukraine and its gaps inside Russia, they will be more willing to cooperate with us. This was told to us by intelligence officers.

3. The person who told us about the probable use of the "secret method" also told us how the attacks were made and at the same time calculated how many more there could potentially be.

Anyway, we love it when something burns in Russia. We are confident that this trend will progress rapidly.

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