While firefighters in Canada continue to battle unusually intense and early wildfires, firefighters in Phoenix, Arizona, the hottest city in the United States, are fighting a different battle. The current heat wave, starting in early July and still ongoing, just broke a record set in 1974 with 19 straight days where the temperature exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The nighttime doesn’t bring any relief for the city–at no time during the 19 days of intense heat has the temperature dipped below 90 degrees. The culprit behind the searing, persistent heat in Phoenix and across the Southwest is a ‘heat dome’, a phenomenon that occurs when a ridge of high pressure in the atmosphere traps extreme heat over a vast area of land. The current heat dome, parked squarely over Phoenix and affecting much of the Southwest, has been unusually severe and lengthy, creating an environment unbearable to the citizens of Phoenix and especially life-threatening to the homeless or otherwise disadvantaged population.
Billboards broadcast the crippling temperatures across Phoenix.
80% of the calls that firefighters in Phoenix and greater Maricopa County receive are medical emergencies. During this blistering heat, firefighters reported a dramatic increase in heat-related emergency calls. The July heat wave’s death toll continues to rise, with 12 confirmed deaths and 40 more under investigation. During the severe heat, even people with resources to stay inside such as air conditioning can be burned or otherwise injured with just a simple mistake. Kevin Foster, a doctor and director of a local burn center, reports that their unit receives cases every day of people scalding themselves with hose water, or burning themselves on concrete, which can reach an excess of 160 degrees Fahrenheit on very hot days. In one case, Foster says that a man was enjoying a drink on his balcony when he fell onto the hot concrete, severely burning 20% of his body and requiring extensive skin grafting and surgery.
Phoenix hospitals keep plenty of ice stocked to cool down heat stroke patients.
While the heat has made life uncomfortable for all citizens in Maricopa County, it has become life-threatening to the homeless population. With very little shelter available to hide from the blazing sun, calls from people living in shelters or on the streets with full-blown heat stroke flood into fire stations every day. Fire Captain Tim Russell said about the volume of heat-related injuries, “The same things are going to happen again. It’s unrelenting. It’s coming back tomorrow. If you’re in the sun, you’re in trouble fast.” The lack of shelter from the sun and heat has led to many hospitalizations of homeless people due to deep burns and core temperatures in excess of 104 degrees. Another burn surgeon, Louis Ferrari, says that the homeless victims of this heat wave are “some of the sickest patients I’ve ever encountered.”
Phoenix residents seek shelter from the beating sun anywhere possible.
Maricopa County employs short-term measures to protect vulnerable populations from injury in heat waves. The Heat Relief Network, a collaboration between Maricopa County, local municipalities, businesses, charities, and places of faith, offers free water and air-conditioned locations to rest and cool off. During a heat wave in 2020, they were able to convert the Phoenix Convention Center into a heat relief facility, providing meals, medical care, case management, and internet access to over 27,000 people experiencing homelessness throughout the summer. Despite local government’s best efforts, many first responders consider heat relief funding and resources to be insufficient, as severe heat waves such as the current one act like an “invisible natural disaster”, that should be addressed with the level of attention and federal funding that tornadoes and hurricanes do.
One of many free water and heat relief stations, staffed by volunteers.
The effect that severe heat waves have had on Phoenix’s public health and safety has been crippling so far, and climate change will continue to make it much worse. Maricopa County recorded 425 heat related deaths in 2022, a number that has quadrupled in the past decade. The average annual temperature in Maricopa County is 3.4 degrees higher than it was in 1895. Looking forward, the number of days above 110 degrees in Maricopa County is expected to double by 2060. Given these facts, and the seeming inevitability of worsening climate change, Phoenix aims to be the United States’ first heat-ready city. An initiative that Maricopa County has taken on is adding more trees and vegetation to the city, increasing shade and helping to cool the heat-trapping concrete environment through the trees’ process of enviro transpiration. This is especially important in low-income neighborhoods such as Eddison-Eastlake, which have the least amount of vegetation in the city, an average temperature of 10 degrees higher than wealthier neighborhoods, and a heat mortality rate of 20x the county average. The lack of shade infrastructure, as well as higher average temperature and heat mortality rates display the disproportionate effect that worsening climate change has on disadvantaged or vulnerable populations around the world.
Map showing the vegetation index and household income of various Phoenix neighborhoods.
Secondly, in an effort to address the urban heat island effect, caused by the concentration of heat-storing concrete within the city, Arizona State University and the City of Phoenix started the “Cool Pavement Program” in 2020. 36 miles of pavement have since been painted in a reflective light-gray emulsion, resulting in a 10.5-12 degree drop in average road surface temperature. While not a total solution to the issue of concentrated heat within the city, the Cool Pavement Program could provide much needed relief to people throughout their daily lives in Phoenix by reducing the heat reflection off the pavement.
Born out of necessity, Phoenix and Maricopa County’s implementation of programs such as these two, among many others, puts them on the forefront of heat preparedness strategies, in a move that will hopefully provide relief in future moments of heat crisis.
Suggestions for further reading:
“How America’s Hottest City will Survive Climate Change” by Sarah Kaplan
“Addressing Heat and Air Quality in Phoenix” by The Nature Conservancy
“In Phoenix, Firefighters Battle an Invisible Inferno” by Jack Healy
“Phoenix Braves Relentless Wave of Extreme Heat in U.S. Southwest” By Sharon Bernstein, Rachel Nostrant and Rich Mckay
“Burning Pavement, Scalding Water Hoses: Perils of a Phoenix Heat Wave” By Joshua Partlow
“New Measures are being taken to reduce heat-related deaths in Phoenix” By Katherine Davis-Young
“How Phoenix is Working to Beat Urban Heat” By Keridwin Cornelius
“Towards a More Resilient Phoenix: How One Desert City is Tackling Extreme Heat Challenges” By Kate Gallego
“How Will Climate Change Affect the Southwest?” By The Environmental Defense Fund
“America’s Hottest City is Almost Unbelievable in the Summer. Can Cooling Technologies Save It?” By Nina Lakhani