# Global fire activity fell by 12.3 per cent during COVID-19 lockdowns

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/how-the-worlds-fires-changed-while-humanity-hit-pause/
- Published: 2026-11-15T12:07:34+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-15T12:33:00+00:00
- Original publisher: Ars Technica
- Original article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/how-the-worlds-fires-changed-while-humanity-hit-pause/
- Topics: Software

## Key points

- Global fire activity dropped 12.3 per cent during lockdowns.
- Researchers used the pandemic as a natural experiment.
- Satellite data could not distinguish wildfires from prescribed burns.

## Summary

A study found that global fire activity fell by 12.3 per cent during COVID-19 lockdowns, when human mobility dropped sharply. The findings suggest that people’s activities can increase fire risk overall, despite also helping to prevent and contain fires.

Led by Jianghao Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team compared fire detections during restricted-mobility periods with other years, using lockdown orders, mobile-phone location data and satellite observations. The satellite detects heat signatures at 375-metre resolution, but cannot distinguish wildfires from intentional prescribed burns, so the researchers could not identify the purpose of each fire.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.