Meanwhile, wildfires continue to rage in Alaska, where a thick blanket of smoke has darkened the skies over Anchorage. July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, when temperatures in Alaska averaged more than 58 degrees Fahrenheit — about 5.5 degrees above historic averages. Elsewhere, fires raging in the Canary Islands forced 8,000 people to evacuate. In Siberia, more than 21,000 square miles of forest have burned so far this month. There have even been large-scale wildfires in Greenland, which recently experienced its largest single-day ice melt in history.