The article deals with the issue of forming a suitable approach for assessing the damage caused by a forest fire in accordance with the Russian Federation Forest Code regulations. The subject of the research is the damage that can be caused by a forest fire. The existing methods of calculating the damage caused by forest fires have been analyzed and so has been the regulatory legal framework in the field of assessing the damage caused to forests by forest fires. None of the existing methodologies fully meets the provisions of the Russian Federation Forest Code Articles 100 and 95. The necessity of a conceptual approach to create a methodology for assessing the potential damage by a forest fire justifies the research rationale. The result of the study is the basis for the formation of a scientifically-based methodology for calculating the damage caused to forests, which is the monetary terms of damage.