COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) — Greenland has recently been hit by localised wildfires, a rarity at this time of year that could be explained by global warming, a researcher at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources said Thursday.

“It is rare for such fires to occur as early as June, and it is reasonable to think that overall climate change, particularly the warming of the Arctic, as well as the current El Niño effect, are to blame,” Karl Brix Zinglersen, head of the Department of Environment and Minerals at the institute, told AFP.

In Greenland, an Arctic island whose few ice-free areas are covered with tundra, vegetation fires are a fairly new phenomenon, he explained.