Last year, areas in the Arctic region like Siberia, Alaska and Greenland were ravaged by record blazes after temperatures shot up to an unusually high level. Now, as the summer season returns, it brings with it heatwaves and also the possibility of dormant forest fires known as "zombie fires" being reignited. These refer to the remnants of the unprecedented forest fires that occurred last year that continue to smolder underground, and are expected to burst into flames as temperatures rise. "We may see a cumulative effect of last year's fire season in the Arctic which will feed into the upcoming season, and could lead to large-scale and long-term fires across the same region once again," Mark Parrington, a senior scientist and wildfire expert at the European Union's Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) told AFP. These hotspots are yet to be confirmed with ground measurements, but scientists say they mainly lie in areas that were the most affected by these fires exactly a year ago.