Are farm fires declining?

While farm fires in northern states have decreased at an aggregate level, data indicates a dichotomous trend: fires are rising across the region except in the states of Haryana and Punjab.

According to data from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) portal, the northern states of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Delhi, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh recorded 14,386 farm fires between September 15 and November 19, compared with 39,193 during a similar period the previous year and 79,698 in 2021.

But CREAMS data also shows that while farm fire incidents have increased in UP, Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, they seem to have nearly halved in Haryana and come down over 70 percent in Punjab.

Rajasthan has witnessed a 43 percent increase in farm fire incidents during a similar period.

The CREAMS data, which uses a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on the Aqua and Terra satellites by NASA, does not tally with reports of active farm fires on the Indian portal BHUVAN.

MODIS records data every twenty-four times, while BHUVAN’s records are more frequent.

For instance, on November 19, while Punjab recorded 270 fires according to CREAMS data, the BHUVAN portal indicated 449 incidents.

In Haryana, BHUVAN’s system shows 40 fires, compared with 35 recorded under the CREAMS system.

The difference was over 100 fires between UP’s CREAM number of 366 and BHUVAN’s assessment of over 450 farm fires.

Experts have been calling for more efficient mechanisms to track farm fires.