Night-time satellite passes over the Rumaila field in Basra, Iraq picked up 18 heat clusters that were lit with a fire radiative power of at least 5 MW on five or more of the 30 nights from 28 August to 26 September 2026. The steadiest cluster was lit on 29 of those nights, peaking at 57.09 MW, and the month produced 1724 hot-night detections in total. Independently, 17 of the 18 clusters fall on sites already listed in the Earth Observation Group's VIIRS Nightfire 2024 annual flare summary — the top match 0.32 km away, credited with 0.185 billion cubic metres that year.
What this is not: heat alone cannot separate a gas flare from a refinery furnace or a kiln, so it is persistence plus the known-flare match that argues 'flare'. The 2024 record proves the site is a flare site, not that this month's burning is new. Fire radiative power is not volume — the sensor saturates on the biggest flames. Unlit venting and cold methane releases stay invisible here.
What would change our mind: a cloudy or smoky month that hides nights and fakes a shutdown, methane data from S5P or EMIT showing venting instead, or ground records reclassifying these clusters as industrial heat.
Written by AI, then checked by a separate reviewer before publication. Every claim points at the evidence below.