Satellite fire monitoring

IARI publishes satellite bulletin with 467 paddy-fire detections

The November 4 satellite-monitoring record covers six states and Delhi; its detection counts can miss fires between overpasses or under thick cloud and smog.

05 November 2026 at 9:59 am 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 appears in the IARI bulletin’s study data-source table; this is not an image of November 4 fires. Credit: NASA.

The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) has published its November 4 paddy-residue burning bulletin, recording 467 satellite-detected fire events that day. The New Delhi institute’s CREAMS laboratory issued bulletin 51 with November 4 as both its event and issue date.

The bulletin lists 157 detections in Madhya Pradesh, 151 in Punjab, 111 in Rajasthan, 33 in Uttar Pradesh, 10 in Haryana and five in Uttarakhand. Delhi recorded none.

For September 15–November 4, the bulletin records 4,800 detections across those states and Delhi, including 2,347 in Punjab and 865 in Madhya Pradesh.

The study’s data-source table includes the MODIS sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite. IARI cautions that satellites do not record every agricultural fire: burning between overpasses, and thick cloud or smog during a pass, can leave events undetected.

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