The effect of external electrostatic fields on the reaction kinetics of hydrogen is investigated using reactive molecular dynamics simulations to give more insight into the use of electromagnetic interactions to control the reactivity of hydrogen systems. Combustion of hydrogen in both pure oxygen and air is studied. Furthermore, two different methods to compute the charge distribution, namely the Charge Equilibration (QEq) and Charge Transfer with Polarization Current Equalization (QTPIE) methods, which model the medium as an ideal conductor and a dielectric, respectively, are used to investigate the role of atomic charges on the reaction kinetics. Results show that the distribution of atomic charges is the major factor to determine the response of the system to external electrostatic fields and that close-range charge transfers are not sufficient to result in any significant change of reactivity for the range of electrostatic fields investigated in this work. Results also show that above a given threshold of the strength of the external electrostatic field, the presence of nitrogen in the systems facilitates a drop in hydrogen’s half-life compared to pure hydrogen-oxygen systems when charge transfers are not limited to close interactions. This threshold depends on ambient conditions and it is a result of the availability of charges that hydrogen and oxygen molecules could acquire. Further computations with electron force field (eFF) show that the electric field could alter the total energy and electro-static potential between the electron-nuclei pair, but the energy variations are at least an order of magnitude lower than the kinetic energy of the system. This suggests that electron dynamics may have a secondary role in the change of reaction kinetics.