Make sure to hydrate: Heat kits assembled in Phoenix before possible triple-degree weather

Yahoo

10-04-2025

With temperatures in Phoenix set to hit triple digits, volunteers and first responders are working to help Valley residents find relief from heat illness.
In Maricopa County in 2024, there were 602 confirmed heat-related deaths, which was a decline from the previous year, yet a number that could still be significantly reduced, health experts and first responders said.
Hundreds of Phoenix volunteers formed an assembly line in an outdoor area outside the headquarters of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, also known as AZ Blue, on April 9, placing items like sunglasses and electrolytes into "heat relief" kits that will be distributed through Valley of the Sun United Way in Maricopa, Mohave, Pima and Yuma counties.
In two shifts, about 1,000 volunteers, employees from AZ Blue, its AZ Blue Foundation and the Phoenix Fire Department, among others, expected to assemble 15,000 heat relief kits in one day in a mass event that included multiple tables, tents and music. The AZ Blue Foundation began donating the kits a few years ago in response to a rising number of heat deaths in the community.
As the volunteers worked, the temperature rose above 90 degrees. The weather is unusually hot for this time of year, caused by a strong area of high pressure across most of the western U.S., said Gabriel Lojero, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Phoenix.
Lojero said thermometers in Phoenix could reach 100 degrees on April 10, which would be the first triple-digit day of 2025. The normal high at this time of year is about 85 degrees, Lojero said. The earliest Phoenix has hit 100 degrees in a calendar year was on March 26 in 1988, according to Lojero.
The summer of 2024 in Maricopa County marked a record-setting number of consecutive days over 100 degrees, yet it was also the first year-over-year decrease in heat deaths since 2014, according to the Maricopa County Health Department.
The decline in deaths was a sign that some of the community's heat-relieving efforts were working, said Paul Penzone, the former Maricopa County sheriff who is now communications chief for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona.
"It's a seasonal campaign that we plan on staying committed to," Penzone said of the AZ Blue Foundation's heat relief projects.
The kits complement other heat-sparing activities that will be happening in Arizona this summer, including a network of heat relief stations throughout Maricopa County, urban tree planting by the AZ Blue Foundation on Earth Day, and an ice immersion technique that the Phoenix Fire Department uses to combat what can be severe and lingering effect of heat illness.
Penzone said assembling the kits was about prevention but about awareness, too.
Preventing heat illness much cheaper than treating someone for heatstroke, which in its most severe form can cause cognitive problems and damage organs, including the brain, kidneys and heart.
And it's important to be aware that it's that time of year again when working and exercising outside is riskier, Penzone said.
State health officials say symptoms of heat exhaustion include cool, moist, pale, flushed or red skin. The skin may be red right after physical activity and the skin may or may not feel hot. Other symptoms include heavy sweating, headache, dizziness, weakness and nausea or vomiting.
"Even today, it's more than 90 degrees. I told the staff to make sure they hydrate," Penzone said. "The last thing we want is for someone to be impacted today."
As volunteers put hats, sunscreen and other items into plastic bags, members of the Phoenix Fire Department demonstrated how they put people suffering from heat stroke into a special bag that they then pour ice over to reduce patients' core temperature — an intervention they used on 311 people in 2024 and expect to use on more this summer, said Adam Kozma, division chief of emergency medical services training for the Phoenix Fire Department.
Cold water immersion: How Phoenix Fire Department will combat heat stroke this summer
People who are unhoused and living on the streets are commonly affected by heat illness, but Kozma said Phoenix Fire Department personnel routinely respond to many others who suffer from heat problems, including people living in homes without air conditioning, hikers, elderly people whose bodies are often less likely to withstand high temperatures and people who are exercising or doing activities like yardwork outside.
"We had more than 1,400 heat-related emergencies last year that we ran... We've seen some this year already," Kozma said.
The human-sized cooling bags that the Phoenix Fire Department were using to help patients suffering from heat illness have been a game changer, Kozma and other fire officials said, as they offered demonstrations to volunteers assembling the kits.
Lojero said the weather in the Valley should begin cooling down starting April 13, with highs that week in the upper 80s to early 90s.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Heat kits prepared as scorching temperatures begin in metro Phoenix