Massive heat in the engine well

First item of business should be to check the accuracy of the temperature gauge. Because if the temperature gauge is correct you car is operating at the correct temperature and there isn't much to "fix", since there's nothing really wrong. And of course if the temp gauge isn't accurate you want to fix it and figure out how hot the engine really is running so you can figure out what you need to do to correct it.

Puzackly.