Historically hot

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 452.

Making emergencies worse

It's not going away

Civic and emergency officials throughout the Southwest say if there was ever a time to worry, this would be it.

The reason isn't just the oppressive heat that is plaguing the region: It's the fact it is expected to hang around, and possibly even get worse, over the next few days.

"A very strong ridge of high pressure is centered over much of the western U.S.," CNN senior meteorologist said. "That high pressure causes sinking air, which becomes compressed and warms up and also dries out. This particular high pressure system remains stuck in the West, which has allowed the heat to build last week and through the weekend."

More than 100 firefighters were called to a large fire Monday at a commercial building in Sun Valley, north of Los Angeles -- a blaze made worse by the heat. With a high of 95 in Sun Valley, one of the problems they have is not only the heat from the fire, but also the ambient temperature.

The high temperatures northwest of Phoenix are complicating efforts to fight the 8,400-acre Yarnell Hill wildfire. That's where 19 members of an elite firefighting squad died Sunday when a wind shift and other factors caused the fire to become erratic.

The heat wave comes just a couple weeks before the 100th anniversary of what the National Weather Service calls the "highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth" -- 134 degrees on July 10, 1913, in Death Valley's Greenland Ranch.

The valley is consistently deemed the hottest location in the world because of its depth and shape. It has one of the world's lowest elevations and also serves as one of the driest locations in North America. Its 11,000-foot surrounding mountain range traps and radiates heat down into it.