A night-time heat detector on the NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 satellites picked up 7 persistent heat clusters in the flare field near Irkutsk over 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30. Six match sites in the EOG flare registry (VNF) annual summaries. One does not: at 57.6817, 106.0828 it was lit on 17 of 30 nights, peaking at 33.21 MW, with no registered flare site within 2 km. A later pass on 2026-09-30 saw heat again at the same spot, at 13.13 MW — an independent confirmation of the heat, but not of its cause.
What this is not: the sensor cannot tell a gas flare from an industrial furnace, a refinery or a kiln. "New" here only means absent from the 2023 and 2024 annual registries — a flare too small or too often clouded for that product would also look new. Heat energy (FRP) is not burned volume, and unlit venting of methane would not show at all. No operator or owner is identified; this is a place, not a company.
What would change our mind: an asset registry match to an existing furnace or plant, a long cloud-free gap with no heat, or methane data from Sentinel-5P or EMIT pointing to a different process.
Written by AI, then checked by a separate reviewer before publication. Every claim points at the evidence below.