90% farm fires in Punjab, Haryana undetected: iFOREST

Current model relies on events at specific time period

- SANDIP DAS

MORE THAN 90% of large farm fires in Punjab and Haryana in 2024 and 2025 are undetected by the official monitoring systems as farmers are shifting stubble-burning activities to late afternoons, according to a report published on Monday.

The stubble-burning status report 2025 by the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST) stated this led to a major underestimation of the contribution of stubble burning to Delhi's air pollution this year.

The report has stated that the government's current monitoring protocol, run by the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS) of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, is unable to detect most farm fires as it relies mainly on polar-orbiting satellites that observe India only between 10:30 am and 1:30 pm.