Surface temperature readings of the turf area at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, in direct sunlight, read 158.7 degrees with outside temperature reading of 107 degrees on Friday, June 21, 2024.
Sunday, July 7, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Children of all ages are frolicking around a splash pad at Sunset Park chucking small water balloons at each other. Their parents are sitting beneath the shade of nearby trees.
It’s a sweltering 110-degree day in Las Vegas — and dangerously hotter on the park’s many surfaces.
The children, barefoot and filled with laughter as water rains down on them from various flower-themed structures, eventually make their way to the adjacent playground that has been baking under the Southern Nevada sun for much of the day.
They attempt to use the plastic brown slide and bolt across the playground flooring, but they immediately recoil after feeling the surface’s heat.
Around 4 p.m. on this day, June 6, the slide had reached 167.3 degrees, according to readings taken using an Etekcity Lasergrip 1080 Infrared Thermometer.
But the slide was not the only hot surface to worry about during Southern Nevada’s pavement burn season.
The Sun visited locations throughout the region last month to take pavement readings. The results were startling: From the Strip to a professional baseball stadium and neighborhood parks, surfaces baking all day in the Las Vegas Sun are a formula for severe burns.
“When we look at our numbers, the hospitalized patients on the burn service during the summer months, there have been times where at least half, if not more, of our patients are burn patients that have sustained pavement burns, so it makes up a huge volume of our hospitalized burn patients,” said Dr. Syed Saquib, burn director for University Medical Center’s Lions Burn Care Center, the only burn care center in Southern Nevada. “Many metallic surfaces can have the same effect, such as the steering wheel of your car, the door handle to a store and a metallic park bench.”
The Southern Nevada Health District reported 294 heat-associated deaths in 2023, a 78% increase from the 165 heat-associated deaths the year before. There were also 2,277 heat-related emergency department visits recorded, the SNHD data showed. The peak for emergency department visits and deaths happened near the middle and end of July.
Saquib said homeless people, older adults, children, intoxicated people and individuals living with medical conditions are the most susceptible to developing severe burns. People who work outdoors or others with heat-related illness that cause them to faint and fall onto hot pavement can be burned as well.
From June 1 to June 25, the Clark County Fire Department responded to 71 heat exposure calls, 29 of which required transport to local hospitals, according to data provided to the Sun by the county.
Burn season starts as early as May and can last through September, Saquib said.
Days with triple-digit heat, like in this year’s record-breaking June and these first days of July with high temperatures reaching past 110 degrees, can cook surfaces to “dangerously high levels, to the point where all it takes is a brief encounter, brief contact with skin” to cause a severe burn.
The burns can be so horrible that it requires hospitalization, complex wound care with multiple surgeries, a hefty medical bill and sometimes months of recovery for the patient, Saquib said.
Venturing around the city
The temperature at the Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin — about 20 miles away from Sunset Park — tells a different story. Summerlin already can be anywhere from 5 to 7 degrees cooler than the center of the valley due to its elevation, the National Weather Service said.
The ballpark, home to the Las Vegas Aviators minor league baseball team, was built in 2019 to keep things even cooler for a summer of minor league games.
Jim Gemma, media relations director for the Aviators, said that everything from the mesh seating to the underground batting cages at Las Vegas Ballpark were designed to protect players and fans from the soaring temperatures that Southern Nevada can reach during the summers.
One of the stadium’s biggest highlights is the seating, Gemma said. Though they’re still painted a dark color, the mesh seats retain less heat than the plastic ones used in other venues, such as Cashman Field, home to the Las Vegas 51s, who preceded the Aviators as Las Vegas’ minor league team.
When measured with a temperature gun, the mesh seats in the shade reached a temperature of 96.4 degrees. Most Aviators games occur in the evening, where fans are more likely to have shaded seats and players won’t bake under the sun.
“We’re lucky to have the nicest ballpark in the minor leagues … (and) this is what is such an advantage for us,” said Gemma about the stadium’s intentional architecture. “But these mesh seats are the key to trying to keep people as cool as possible.”
That’s only one part of the stadium’s intentional architecture. There’s also a “cool deck” in the pool viewing area, which is made from a different material than a standard pool deck to protect peoples’ feet, said Gemma. When the air temperature reaches 102 degrees, the pool deck registers at 131.9 degrees.
The underground batting cages – a rarity in the baseball world, said Gemma – allows players to practice hitting in a cooled environment to avoid getting heat-related illnesses prior to the game. Teams playing at Las Vegas Ballpark usually warm up in one-hour slots between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., which is the hottest time of the day.
But not all of Las Vegas was built like the baseball venue.
On the Las Vegas Strip, a lack of tree coverage and other sustainable architecture elements could be placing people at risk of developing serious burns on hot days.
Take the public escalator railings.
Around 2 p.m. on a day projected to be 108 degrees, the black handrail on the escalator in front of Park MGM leading up to the pedestrian bridge registered 158.2 degrees. About an hour later at the Linq Promenade, when the outdoor temperature was 105 degrees, a brown bench that had been sitting in the sun reported a temperature of 152.4 degrees, even as misters from nearby restaurants rained down water on it.
A brown bench that had been sitting in the shade measured about 30 degrees cooler during the same time frame and outdoor temperature, according to the thermometer’s readings.
Over at the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, which is surrounded by turf, surface temperatures reached almost 160 degrees at 4:30 p.m. when the outdoor temperature was at 107.
But it’s not just the Strip that suffers these problems.
At the Desert Breeze Community Center on June 11, the blacktop behind the building where voters crossed to reach the polling station for Primary Election Day was 125.9 degrees by 10:15 a.m. despite the outdoor temperature being 95 degrees.
The concrete floor at an unshaded bus stop for Route 203 at Spring Mountain Road and Wynn Road – right in front of the Spring Mountain Plaza – reported a 141.8-degree temperature by 12:30 p.m. on June 24, when the day’s high was projected to reach 108 degrees.
Actions needed
Las Vegas is one of the fastest heating cities in the nation and in the world, said Dr. Steffen Lehmann, a UNLV professor of architecture and internationally recognized designer.
The solution to keeping these hot surfaces cool and people protected from burns? Sustainable architecture, he says.
The world is seeing longer and stronger heat waves more frequently, he explained, and even desert cities like Las Vegas begin to see four times the typical mortality rate when temperatures soar above 115 degrees.
“You must dress appropriately in summer, you know? When it’s sunny, you don’t dress in black, and the same happens to buildings and the roofs,” Lehmann said. “You don’t have black buildings, you don’t have black roofs; you try to avoid it, and also, there are many ways we can make buildings more heat resilient.”
Integrating greenery and vegetation is “very important” to creating shading, he pointed out. Installing green roofs and green walls that feature a thin layer of vegetation “provide shade, remove heat from the air and reduce temperature of the roof surface and surrounding air,” according to the Environment Protection Agency.
Lehmann argued that simply planting street trees that generate a large berth of shade would also be helpful, especially in creating continuous shading that could allow people to walk more outside without suffering from burns or heat illness.
New technology has been developed for roof coating that makes use of what Lehmann referred to as the Albedo Effect. Instead of using asphalt or concrete roof tiles that absorb and store heat, this nanotechnology coating makes metal and other materials bounce back solar radiation to keep surface temperatures cooler.
White paint on buildings and roofs, like what is seen on buildings in Greece’s Santorini or Portugal’s Azore Islands, also helps to prevent solar absorption and has gained a lot of interest in recent years, Lehmann said.
For humans that can’t slather themselves in white paint or carry around a potted tree for shade, there are other ways to prevent sun and heat-related burns.
Sadiq recommends people stay well hydrated, find whatever shade is available, wear sunscreen and be cautious of surfaces – especially metallic ones. People who drive cars should always have a cloth or small towel to cover their steering wheel with if it gets too hot, he added.
Pets can be burned too.
Sadiq encourages pet owners to only walk their pets early in the morning or late at night when the pavement is less hot, or to only allow them on grass. If possible, pet owners can also purchase boots for their pets to wear to protect their paws.
“We want to remind the public that, during the summertime when classes are out and families are going to try spending time together outdoors, just use common sense measures to keep yourself hydrated and avoid the hot pavements,” Sadiq said. “But if, heaven forbid, anyone sustains a pavement burn injury or any other burn for that matter, we at UMC Lions Burn Care Center are equipped, willing and ready to provide the services needed to help our patients.”
[email protected] / 702-948-7854 / @gracedarocha
