A lot of the Arctic is engulfed in a ‘river of smoke’ right now. Check out NASA’s photos

When we think of wildfires wreaking havoc, we usually think of the massive blazes that destroy thousands of acres of forest across California, or other dry, hot places. But forest fires burn in the planet's northernmost regions, too. In fact, 2015 has been one of the most intense fire seasons in years for Canada, Russia and Alaska.

So far, the statistics are staggering. As of mid-July, more than 3,190,000 acres across Canada had gone up in smoke. That was before 115 new fires erupted across British Columbia in the past few days. (Roughly half of those were caused by lightning strikes.) Blazes across the northern parts of Russia have been particularly intense, releasing colossal plumes of smoke. Across Alaska, which is experiencing its worst wildfire season ever, more than 600 fires have destroyed millions of acres.

The extreme nature of all of these fires means that the Arctic has essentially been engulfed by smoke. "As the wildfires consume vegetation they emit large quantities of smoke," NASA explains. "This is especially intense in peat soils, which is a common soil in many boreal regions, especially in boggy areas or in permafrost." The space agency has captured striking satellite imagery of the “river of smoke” traveling across the Greenland Sea and pictures of the fires still burning. Here are a few examples:

On July 3, 2015, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of a river of smoke passing over the Greenland Sea.

Dozens of wildfires have broken out in the Alaska wilderness this fire season, and the Aqua satellite captured this image of the fires on July 1, 2015.

This image is of the Little Bobtail Lake fire in British Columbia, Canada. Drought conditions, high temperatures and dry debris helped to fuel the fire. Even though airtankers had been dropping fire retardant on the flames, the fire continued to grow and move past the retardant lines with little effort.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that wildfires are burning in the Arctic. In fact it is the smoke from these fires — generally burning south of the Arctic — that is spreading in the frozen region.