Russia ? Raging forest fires encircled a southern Russian city and tore through provincial villages Thursday, forcing mass evacuations as Moscow suffered through a record weeks-long heat wave and smog cloud caused by peat-bog fires.

Some 212,506 acres were burning nationwide, and flames all but encircled the city of Voronezh, 300 miles southeast of Moscow. Forest fires on Moscow’s outskirts reached the city’s western fringe, in the Krylatskoye district, but were extinguished toward nightfall.

There were no reports of casualties.

Hot summers are usual even in Russia’s more northern climes, where temperatures routinely reach the mid-80s. But Moscow on Thursday broke its all-time temperature record for the second time in a week.

The mercury hit 100 Fahrenheit on Thursday, beating by a fraction a record set on Monday, the country’s news agencies reported.