Survey of India states + LGD/Bharatmaps districts (DataMeet / ramSeraph mirror)fetched 9 Nov, 08:47 IST · fetch 44144
Why the rule calls it a burn
Rule s2burn-rules-2
Pixels in the scar
207
Near-infrared darkened (dB8A)
0.183
Short-wave infrared 1 darkened (dB11)
0.179
Short-wave infrared 2 darkened (dB12)
0.082
Burned-area index after (BAIS2)
0.93
Brightness after
0.23
Greenness before, after (NDVI)
0.39, 0.20
Burn ratio change (dNBR), NBR after
0.24, −0.13
The detection rule
Sentinel-2 L2A, cropland only: NIR and SWIR darkened since the previous clear pass (dB8A>0.07, dB11>0.07, dB12>0.03) and the field now looks charred (BAIS2>=0.78, brightness<=0.34); passes at most 6 days apart; clusters of at least 0.52 ha whose mean post-burn NBR is below 0.0 (drops flooded fields and cloud shadows). Candidates: tillage can look similar.
When a burn counts as unseen
unseen = no FIRMS detection within max(1 km, pixel half-diagonal + 200 m) of the scar between the clear pass before it and 3 h after the pass that shows it
Known look-alikes: cloud and smoke-plume shadows in partly cloudy passes and flooded fields with mean post NBR just below 0 still pass, often with high confidence; tillage of wet soil can mimic char; a hazy pre pass can exaggerate the darkening.
Aqua MODIS3.5 km
Thu 5 Nov, 15:45 IST · 35.1 MW · high confidence
Beyond the match radius
Aqua MODIS3.6 km
Tue 3 Nov, 16:06 IST · 43.8 MW · high confidence
Outside the burn window
NOAA-20 VIIRS3.7 km
Sun 8 Nov, 14:13 IST · 7.8 MW · nominal confidence
Sentinel-2 scenesS2A_T43RDQ_20261104T055022_L2A and S2B_T43RDQ_20261107T054750_L2A
Candidate unseen burns as a whole: audit precision 87% (95% CI 68%–96%, n = 23), checked by eye.
How often this rule is right: when people checked a random sample of candidate unseen burns by eye, the audit precision was 87% (95% CI 68%–96%, n = 23).
