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
83
Near-infrared darkened (dB8A)
0.132
Short-wave infrared 1 darkened (dB11)
0.150
Short-wave infrared 2 darkened (dB12)
0.080
Burned-area index after (BAIS2)
0.90
Brightness after
0.27
Greenness before, after (NDVI)
0.28, 0.17
Burn ratio change (dNBR), NBR after
0.13, −0.10
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.
NOAA-21 VIIRS3.7 km
Sun 25 Oct, 14:18 IST · 6.6 MW · nominal confidence
Beyond the match radius
NOAA-21 VIIRS4.3 km
Thu 22 Oct, 13:35 IST · 5.9 MW · low confidence
Outside the burn window
NOAA-20 VIIRS4.7 km
Sun 25 Oct, 13:33 IST · 2.7 MW · nominal confidence
Sentinel-2 scenesS2C_T43SER_20261023T054822_L2A and S2B_T43SER_20261028T054808_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).
