Satellite night-time heat detections over a registered flare field near Amadiya, Duhok (Iraq) show 2 persistent clusters over the 30 nights ending 27 September 2026, with 85 hot-night detections in total. The most persistent burned on 24 of those nights, peaking at 14.58 MW of fire radiative power. Both clusters sit on sites listed in the independent VIIRS Nightfire 2024 annual flare summary, the nearest just 0.13 km away, with a top-site volume of 0.209 billion cubic metres in that year.
What this is not: it is not a measurement of how much gas is being burned now. Thermal sensors cannot distinguish a gas flare from a furnace, refinery or kiln — only the persistence and the site match point to flaring. The 2024 record proves the location is a known flare, not that it flared this week. Cold venting and unlit methane are invisible here. Cloudy nights hide detections, so persistence may be undercounted, and two passes a night miss short bursts.
What would change our mind: methane sounding from Sentinel-5P or EMIT, a later VNF annual summary, or asset records identifying a non-flare heat source at these coordinates.
Written by AI, then checked by a separate reviewer before publication. Every claim points at the evidence below.