The fires affecting Moscow are concentrated in the Ryazan region, some 250 kilometers to the south. This is not the first time smog has appeared in Moscow in recent months, with local authorities advising residents to wear masks to protect themselves earlier this month.

Most of the blazes are in a region that saw possibly the hottest-ever temperature above the Arctic Circle this month.

Gallery | The forest fires have covered an area larger than Greece and are emitting black smog that harms nearby populations.

The driest summer in 150 years has turned Yakutia into a tinderbox and seen wildfires tear through the region.

Gallery | The fires, which were swept in from Mongolia by high winds, have caused almost $9.4 million in damage.

Russian weather officials and environmentalists have said climate change is a major factor behind the increase in fires.

Russia's Aerial Forest Protection Service is trying to suppress 136 fires over 43,000 hectares. Firefighters are using explosives to contain the fires and seeding clouds with silver iodide to encourage rain.

Photos of Yugorsk and other cities showed residential buildings fuzzy under a blanket of white smog.

Wildfires in Russia have burned across a combined area the size of Greece so far in 2020, surpassing official estimates threefold. Experts warn that this year’s blazes could become the most destructive in history.

Officials say a wildfire in Southwest Washington that ballooned Sunday, causing regional air quality issues, may have been started by a firework or firearm.

The Kostanai Region declared a state of emergency on Sept. 4 after forest fires burned a record 43,000 hectares (the size of Сarribean Barbados island) and forced an evacuation of 1,841 people. 

Abnormally hot May weather resembles midsummer with air temperatures as high as +35C.

Wildfires on permafrost are ravaging Yakutia - or the Sakha Republic - the largest and coldest entity of the Russian Federation. The scale is mesmerizing. There are some 300 separate fires, now covering 12,140 square kilometers - but only around half of these are being tackled, because they pose a threat to people. The rest are burning unchecked.

Even school children are in firefighting brigades in some areas of Yakutia.

Omsk region reported ‘record high’ number of wildfires and cases of dry grass burning, that turn into wildfires this spring, with one day last week counting nearly a thousand new events a day. Omsk region emergency services said the number of wildfires is seven to ten times above the norm.

This time weather experts think the blackout was caused by smoke from wildfires mixing with heavy rain clouds.

Wildfires ablaze early in year due to lack of snow, posing threat to railway in Russian Far East.

The blaze was the fourth such incident in the last one month, as Delhi’s landfills are catching fire due to heavy build up of methane between the layers of millions of tonnes of garbage and high temperatures the city. Local residents said small fires keep erupting in the huge mountain of waste, but they have not seen such a massive one that broke out on Tuesday night.

At least 90 left homeless in one village after raging infernos, say reports.

Some 5.4 million hectares of land are ablaze across Russia, mostly in Siberia and the country's far east. Water sprayed by planes to fight the fires is ‘now as expensive as Champagne’.