A HEAT WAVE gripped large swaths of the Western US on Saturday as temperatures hovered near record highs, heightening wildfire risks in areas that already were dry or burning and prompting warnings for people to stay inside.
A ridge of high pressure was holding heat close to the ground — what’s known as a heat dome — from Arizona to Montana, though the good news was that it will be relatively short-lived, National Weather Service meteorologists said.
Dangerous heat and warnings were plaguing the region, and the National Weather Service on Saturday forecast a number of cities that were expected to hit record highs.
By late afternoon, Las Vegas reached 46 Celsius, the hottest temperature of the year and just one degree off the daily record of 47 C.
Phoenix was expected to reach 47 C, while El Centro, California, was expected to hit a record 48 C.
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Even parts of Montana were expected to broil, with a record 40 C forecast for Great Falls.
The high in Las Vegas was 10 degrees above normal, and meteorologists warned of dangerous heat through Sunday, when the high was expected to be 45 C, according to weather service meteorologist Morgan Stessman.
At the Justa Center in Phoenix, which caters to seniors but opens to the public as a cooling center in the afternoon, the biggest challenge was keeping up with the need for water and electrolytes, operations director Rudy Soliz said.
Guests cool off in the wave pool at Mandalay Bay Beach at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino to escape a heat dome affecting much of the western United States on July 31, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES/AFP
The August record for Las Vegas is 47 C, while the hottest on record was 49 C in July 2024, which also was the hottest summer on record, Stessman said.
In Montana, the entire east side of the state was under an extreme heat warning, though by Sunday much of the state was forecast to be in the 70s, according to weather service meteorologist Jeff Kitsmiller.
Heat exacerbates wildfire risks
Forecasters warned that this heat wave, combined with drying from past heat, will add to wildfire risks across the West.
In Nevada, Stessman said, “with this heat dome setting up, we’ve lost some of the moisture that we did have — like relative humidity in the afternoon bottoming out in the single digits in quite a few places.”
The US Forest Service warned of enhanced wildfire risk through Sunday in most of Southern California except the coastline.
Extreme heat and drought also have created dangerous wildfire conditions in the Pacific Northwest.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a state of emergency Saturday after unusually high temperatures and high winds exacerbated record wildfires across the state.
He also banned most outdoor and agricultural burning through the end of September.
Ferguson’s proclamation went into effect ahead of an unprecedented “particularly dangerous situation” red flag alert by the National Weather Service, which rated the weather risk as “extreme” across Eastern Washington.