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Summary

This article employs satellite data on real-time active fire locations in Nepal to evaluate the short-term environmental effects of COVID-19. Using plausibly exogenous variation in the number of reported COVID-19 cases across the country, this study finds that the incidence of COVID-19 led to a strong negative effect on the incidence of human induced forest fires. Results indicate that an additional reported case of COVID-19 resulted in a 4.54% decrease in the number of forest fire incidents and 11.36% reduction in fire radiative power associated with these events. Findings of this study further show that districts with smaller areas of community-managed forests per capita experienced 8.11% decrease in the number of forest fire incidents.