The smoke plume of California’s Dixie Fire (the largest in US history) is so thick, only the red light of the sun can pierce the smoke particles, in a scene that looks like Mars. Over a hundred other large fires are raging elsewhere in the USA. Greece has been fighting the worst blazes in Europe amid blistering temperatures, leaving dozens in hospital. Their firefighting resources are strained, exhausted, and needing help; twenty countries including the UK recently sent reinforcements. Turkey’s blazes have swept through pine forests for two weeks. Fires rage in southern Italy, with Sicily and Sardinia among the regions hardest hit and hundreds evacuated. British Columbia has seen 5,800 sq km of forest burned since spring; 279 wildfires are currently raging. Smoke from Russia’s wildfires has reached the North Pole for the first time; smoke is drifting two thousand miles from Eastern Russia. See