Punjab and Haryana’s stubble burning is higher than government data suggests, says a new study by iForest. The Environment Ministry claims fire counts from satellites fell by over 90% since 2021, pointing to a sharp drop in stubble burning. But iForest’s analysis shows that measuring actual burnt land area reveals only about a 30% decrease, from 31,500 sq km in 2022 to 19,700 sq km in 2025. “The government should stop using fire counts as a proxy for gauging a decline or increase in stubble burning,” said iForest CEO Chandra Bhushan. He explained that many small fires are missed by the satellites that track active flames. Current official data relies on NASA’s MODIS and VIIRS satellites which orbit over India only at set times during the day. These satellites catch only some active fires, missing many especially those occurring outside 10:30 am to 1:30 pm. This leads to underestimated pollution from stubble burning. “The contribution of stubble burning to Delhi’s air pollution was highly underestimated this year,” iForest stated. This skew in data affects government policy and action plans. To correct this, iForest used data from the Sentinel satellite which measures actual burnt area with high detail. They also studied data from Meteosat 8 and 9 geostationary satellites that monitor fires every 15 minutes but can only count large fires. The Meteosat data showed most fires happen in the evening—outside the detection window of polar satellites. Haryana’s fires especially occur in the evenings, meaning official counts have always been low. ISRO scientists recently published research confirming fires shifted to evenings to avoid satellite detection, with an increasing trend in Punjab’s fires from 2020 to 2024. The government knows its current data has gaps and was ordered by the Supreme Court to investigate fires at night more closely. However, it has not released burnt area data, citing technical issues. Bhushan concluded, “While there has been some success in limiting farm fires in Punjab, a lot more work is required. The contribution of stubble burning is much more than the 5% -10% currently assumed.”