Punjab recorded 292 farm fires on Saturday, October 31, its highest single-day count of this paddy season, taking the cumulative tally since September 15 to 1,339, according to satellite-based Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) counts reported by The Tribune and the Times of India. The new peak is half as high again as the previous season high of 194 fires on October 29, when the season's tally crossed 1,007.

Source: Jugti (reporting The Tribune and Times of India)

292Farm fires on Oct 31 — season's highest in a day
1,339Season total since Sep 15
455Cases in Tarn Taran, the top district

The surge has come late and fast: around 758 incidents — about 56 per cent of the season's entire total — were logged in just the last six days. The Times of India reported that Punjab accounted for about 88 per cent of the 332 farm fires recorded across seven states on Saturday.

Tarn Taran tops the season's district tally with 455 cases, followed by Amritsar with 187, Ferozepur with 141, Gurdaspur with 95 and Kapurthala with 84. On Saturday alone, Tarn Taran logged 50 fires, Ferozepur 36 and Sangrur 32.

The season's total is still about 18 per cent below the 1,642 cases recorded at the same stage last year. But Saturday's single-day figure of 292 is about 30 per cent above the 224 fires recorded on the same day in 2025, Punjabi Jagran reported. Experts quoted by The Tribune linked the early surge in Tarn Taran and Amritsar to early paddy harvesting in the border districts, where many farmers also grow vegetables and burn residue to clear their fields quickly.

More than 65 per cent of Punjab's paddy area — over 32 lakh hectares — has been harvested, leaving about 35 per cent still standing. Wheat sowing began on November 1, and officials and experts expect fire incidents to rise further in the coming days as harvesting speeds up in the Malwa districts of Sangrur, Moga, Bathinda and Muktsar.

In its last district-wise report, up to October 29, the PPCB said 426 show-cause notices had been issued to nodal and supervisory officers, 246 FIRs registered against farmers and red entries made in the revenue records of 297 farmers over stubble burning this season.

The season's sharpest spike came on the same day a team of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) was on the ground in Malwa reviewing how districts are managing paddy straw. Read: CAQM team reviews straw management in Sangrur, Patiala and Malerkotla