Arctic wildfires are raging across the region, the EU’s climate service says.

The European Union’s climate change observatory – Copernicus – reports that forest fires are ravaging the Arctic Circle again.

This is the third time in the past five years that very intense fires have swept the region.

In a statement released on Thursday, Copernicus reported that high air temperatures and dry conditions in Sakha, Russia, provide ideal conditions for wildfires to break out once a spark is ignited.

More than 160 forest fires have affected nearly 460,000 hectares of land as of June 24, Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted the region’s deputy minister of ecology, management and forestry as saying.

Scientists are concerned that smoke from the fires will hinder the ability of Arctic ice to reflect solar radiation, meaning the land and sea absorb more heat.

The Arctic is “ground zero for climate change”, Professor Gill Whiteman of the University of Exeter told the BBC.

“The increasing wildfires in Siberia are a clear warning sign that this key system is approaching dangerous climate tipping points,” she said.

She added, “What is happening in the Arctic is not limited to what exists,” noting that these fires “serve as a warning cry for urgent action.”

Professor Guillermo Rehn, professor of fire science at Imperial College London, described the fires as “a growing monster of climate change”.

“A decade ago, Arctic wildfires were considered rare events, and were rarely studied. Now they occur throughout the summer and with increasing burn scars,” he told the BBC.

As temperatures rise in the Arctic due to climate change, wildfires have moved north, burning boreal forests and tundra, releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases from carbon-rich organic soils.