Arizona’s desert city of Phoenix has suffered 113 consecutive days with temperatures above 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) this year, leading to hundreds of heat-related deaths and wildfires burning across the state, officials said.
The city of 1.6 million people, the largest in the Sonoran Desert, had its hottest summer in 2023 by nearly two degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The 113-day streak reached last week broke Phoenix’s previous record of 76 consecutive days above 100 degrees, set in 1993.
“It’s very rare, especially two summers in a row, two record-breaking summers like we’ve just had,” said Matt Salerno, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Phoenix.
Heat has killed 256 people in Phoenix Maricopa County this year and is the suspected cause of 393 deaths, according to official data. That puts the county on track to surpass the record of 645 heat-related deaths in 2023.
About half of the deaths involved the homeless, the county’s most vulnerable group.
The deaths peaked in July, when Phoenix recorded a consecutive high temperature of 118 degrees, which climate scientists attributed to global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution.
Over the past five years, the city has averaged 40 days with temperatures of 110 degrees or higher, according to the Arizona State Climate Office.
According to Bureau Director Erinanne Chafel, the area burned by wildfires has increased across the state in 2024 compared to last year.
A climatic combination of winter precipitation and summer heat has fueled wildfires around Los Angeles in recent weeks.
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