Night-time satellite passes over the flare field near Amarah, Maysan, picked up 6 clusters of heat of at least 5 MW that were lit on 5 or more of the last 30 nights (29 August to 27 September 2026). The most persistent burned on 29 nights and peaked at 71.44 MW, out of 786 hot-night detections in all. All 6 clusters fall on sites already listed in the 2024 VIIRS Nightfire annual flare summary, the closest just 0.12 km away, with the top site credited at 0.527 billion cubic metres for that year — an independent provider signal that these are known flare locations.
What this is not: thermal sensors cannot separate a gas flare from a refinery furnace or kiln, and the brightness figure is not a measure of volume — the largest flares saturate the sensor. The VNF match is an annual aggregate from a past year, so it proves the place flares, not that it flared this week. No operator or owner is identified here; a cluster is a place. Cold, unlit venting would be invisible.
What would change our mind: a cloudy or smoky month would undercount nights, and daylight imagery, methane sounders or asset registries could reclassify the source as industrial heat rather than flaring.
Written by AI, then checked by a separate reviewer before publication. Every claim points at the evidence below.