By Liliana Salgado
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Temperatures in the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, have reached record highs of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) for 113 consecutive days this year, resulting in hundreds of heat-related deaths and more acres of wildfires burning across the state, authorities said.
The city of 1.6 million, the largest in the Sonoran Desert, experienced its hottest summer ever, beating the previous record set in 2023 by nearly two degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The 113-day streak reached last week surpassed Phoenix’s previous record of 76 days above 100°F set in 1993.
“It’s very rare that we experience two record-breaking summers like we just experienced,” said Matt Salerno, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.
So far this year, 256 people have died from heat in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, official data show. Another 393 deaths are suspected to be heat-related. Last year, there were 645 heat-related deaths in the county.
“It’s too early to predict how the totals will compare in 2024 to 2023,” said Nailea Leon, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Health Department. She added that heat deaths and presumed deaths in 2024 are below 2023 levels, but summer is not over yet.
About half of the deaths involve homeless people, the country’s most vulnerable group.
The number of deaths peaked in July, when Phoenix regularly experienced highs of 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) – a trend that climate scientists attribute to global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution.
According to the Arizona State Climate Office, the city has had an average of 40 days with temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit over the past five years, compared to only about five days at the beginning of the last century.
According to the office’s director, Erinanne Saffell, the extreme heat in 2024 has led to a nationwide increase in the area burned by wildfires compared to the previous year.
A climate-related combination of record-breaking winter rainfall and summer heat has fueled wildfires around Los Angeles in recent weeks.
(Reporting by Liliana Salgado in Phoenix, additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson, Aurora Ellis and Rashmi Aich)
