Breakdown of Вследствие пожара мы понесли ущерб и потеряли всю древесину.
и
and
мы
we
потерять
to lose (perfective)
весь
all, the whole, everything, everyone
Questions & Answers about Вследствие пожара мы понесли ущерб и потеряли всю древесину.
How does вследствие work here, and could I just say из-за пожара?
Вследствие is a formal compound preposition meaning "as a consequence of" or "due to," and it always requires the Genitive case (hence пожара). You absolutely could use из-за here, but вследствие belongs to official or business language. It tells you this sentence is likely from an insurance claim, a news report, or a formal document rather than a casual chat.
Is вследствие always written as one word ending in -е?
Yes, when it is used as a preposition of cause. However, learners often confuse it with the noun следствие (a criminal investigation) paired with the simple preposition в (in/into). If a detective gets involved "in an investigation," it is written as two words: в следствие (Accusative) or в следствии (Prepositional). Here, it is one single word because it's a preposition.
Why use понесли with ущерб? Doesn't понести usually mean to physically carry something?
Literally, yes, понести is a perfective verb meaning "to carry" for a short time. But in formal Russian, it forms set phrases (collocations) dealing with negative consequences. You use it in standard expressions like понести ущерб (to suffer damage), понести потери (to suffer losses), or понести наказание (to bear a punishment).
Why use древесина for "timber" instead of just ?