Satellite fire monitoring

November 5 satellite bulletin records 837 paddy-fire detections

The IARI monitoring record brings the season’s detected events to 5,637 across six states and Delhi; fires between overpasses or beneath thick cloud and smog can go unrecorded.

08 November 2026 at 3:31 pm ISTBy Science Desk1 min read

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NASA’s Terra spacecraft and its instruments, including MODIS, in an illustration published with a December 2025 mission feature. Terra is listed among the bulletin’s satellite data sources; this is not an image of November 5 fires. Credit: NASA.

Satellite monitoring recorded 837 paddy-residue fire events across six states and Delhi on November 5, according to bulletin 52 from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). The institute’s New Delhi CREAMS laboratory dated both the bulletin and its observations November 5, 2026.

The bulletin lists 440 detections in Punjab, 216 in Madhya Pradesh, 90 in Rajasthan, 64 in Uttar Pradesh, 18 in Haryana and nine in Uttarakhand. Delhi recorded none.

For September 15–November 5, the monitoring record totals 5,637 detections, including 2,787 in Punjab and 1,081 in Madhya Pradesh.

The data-source table lists Terra and Aqua alongside Suomi NPP and NOAA-20. IARI cautions that satellites can miss agricultural fires that occur between overpasses, or beneath thick cloud or smog during a pass.

Update, November 8: This report adds the November 5 dataset to our coverage of bulletin 51 for November 4, which recorded 467 daily detections and 4,800 for the season.

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