As Supreme Court Dealt With Pollution, Punjab Recorded Highest Farm Fire Count

Hiren Jethva, an aerosol remote sensing scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, told NDTV this evening that this data was collected by the NASA satellite between noon and 1.30 pm -- a time band that over the last three years has showed a decreasing trend of farm fires.

Around 1,000 farm fires were detected in Punjab alone today -- on a day the Supreme Court ripped into the Delhi government over the pollution blanket over north India that went off charts. Hiren Jethva, an aerosol remote sensing scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, told NDTV this evening that this data was collected by the NASA satellite between noon and 1.30 pm -- a time band that over the last three years has showed a decreasing trend of farm fires. A preliminary quantitative analysis of the GK2A-AMI sensor's 3.8-micron data indicates that fire activity tends to peak in the late afternoon over the past three years @VishnuNDTV@CBhattacharji@jksmith34@avoiland@KMA_Skylove_engpic.twitter.com/oP7zEw17hT

The farm fires, he reiterated today, are lately lit well after 2 pm, when the NASA satellites have passed over India -- a situation that has raised questions over whether farmers are deliberately attempting to hoodwink the satellite.

"Except today, there has been a clear shift in the burning pattern. Since 2002, most fires took place in the 1 to 2 pm window," which has not been the case over the last three years.