Volunteers and county employees set up cots and stacked hundreds of bottles of water in an air-conditioned cooling center in a vacant building in Portland, Oregon, one of many such places being set up as the Northwest sees another stretch of sizzling temperatures. Scorching weather also hit other parts of the country this week. The weather service said heat advisories and warnings would be in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic through at least Friday. In Portland, tempertures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) on Wednesday and the mercury could soar past the century mark Thursday and Friday. Authorities trying to provide relief to vulnerable people are mindful of a record-shattering heat wave earlier this summer that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest. Read:Wildfires rage as US West grapples with heat wave, drought The high temperatures in Portland, part of a usually temperate region, would break all-time records this week if the late June heat wave had not done so already. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a chance to break records, and many people there, like in Oregon, don’t have air conditioning. People began coming into a 24-hour cooling center in north Portland before it opened Wednesday. The first few people in were experiencing homelessness, a population vulnerable to extreme heat. Among them was December Snedecor, who slept two nights in the same center in June when temperatures reached 116 F (47 C). She said she planned to sleep there again this week because the heat in her tent was unbearable. “I poured water over myself a lot. It was up in the teens, hundred-and-something heat. It made me dizzy. It was not good,” Snedecor said of the June heat. “I’ve just got to stay cool. I don’t want to die.” Read: Heat wave blankets US West as fires rage in several states Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center, citing the potential for disruptions to the power grid and transportation. Besides opening cooling centers, city and county governments are extending public library hours and waiving bus fare for those headed to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide help line will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety tips. Emergency officials have sent alerts to phones, said Dan Douthit, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management. The back-to-back heat waves, coupled with a summer that’s been exceptionally warm and dry overall, are pummeling a region where summer highs usually drift into the 70s or 80s. Intense heat waves and a historic drought in the American West reflect climate change that is making weather more extreme. The June heat in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia killed hundreds of people and served as a wake-up call for what’s ahead in a warming world. It was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, a detailed scientific analysis found. Even younger residents struggled with the heat in June and dreaded this week’s sweltering temperatures. Read: Study: Northwest heat wave impossible without climate change Katherine Morgan, 27, has no air conditioning in her third-floor apartment and can’t afford a window unit on the money she makes working at a bookstore and as a hostess at a brewery. She’ll have to walk to work Thursday, the day when temperatures could again soar. “All my friends and I knew that climate change was real, but it’s getting really scary because it was gradually getting hot — and it suddenly got really hot, really fast,” Morgan said.

A heat wave baking southeast Europe has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey and threatened the national power grid in Greece as governments scrambled Monday to secure the resources needed to cope with the emergency. Temperatures reached 45 C (113 F) in inland areas of Greece and nearby countries and are expected to remain high for most of the week. Read:At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured Battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day, Turkey broadened an appeal for international assistance and was promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The fires have been blamed for the deaths of eight people in recent days. The help for residents in Turkey’s fire-ravaged areas couldn’t come soon enough. At the coastal village of Bozalan, resident Esra Sanli looked over at the blaze. “It’s burning. It’s obviously burning. There’s no plane, there’s no helicopter, there are no (access) roads,” she said, sobbing. “How is this going to be extinguished? How?” In Greece, an emergency was declared in fire-hit areas on the island of Rhodes, which is near the Turkish coast. Workers with health conditions were allowed to take time off work, while Greek coal-fired power stations slated for retirement were brought back into service to shore up the national grid, under pressure due to the widespread use of air conditioning. Pregnant and other vulnerable workers in North Macedonia were told to stay home. Dann Mitchell, a professor of climate science at the University of Bristol, said the heat wave in southeast Europe “is not at all unexpected, and very likely enhanced due to human-induced climate change.” “The number of extreme heat events around the world is increasing year on year, with the top 10 hottest years on record all occurring since 2005,” Mitchell told The Associated Press. Read:Europe’s summer tourism outlook dimmed by variants, rules “This year, we have seen a number of significant events, including a particularly dramatic heat wave in western Canada and the U.S., that was extreme even for current levels of climate change,” Mitchell said. “These black swan events have always happened, but now they sit on the background of a hotter climate, so are even more deadly.” As hot weather edged southward, Italy and Croatia were experiencing storms as well as wildfires. A small tornado in Istria, on Croatia’s northern Adriatic coast, toppled trees that destroyed several cars, hours before a large wildfire erupted outside the nearby resort of Trogir, threatening homes and the local power supply. Some 30 people were treated for light smoke inhalation in Italy’s coastal city of Pescara after flames tore through a nearby pine forest. Beach-goers nearby had to be rescued by sea Sunday from that wildfire. “That zone of pine forest is a nature reserve, and it’s completely destroyed. It brings tears to see it. The environmental damage is incalculable. This is the heart of the city, its green lung and today it is destroyed,” Pescara Mayor Carlo Masci said. Cyprus, recovering from a major wildfire last month, kept water-dropping planes on patrol to respond to fires as they broke out. “If you don’t react right away with a massive response to any outbreak, things can turn difficult quickly,” forestry service chief Charalambos Alexandrou told state-run media. “The conditions are war-like.” On a visit to the power grid operator Monday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged members of the public to avoid daytime use of ovens, washing machines and other energy-demanding appliances to reduce the risk of blackouts. He described the weather conditions in Greece as the most severe since a deadly heat wave in 1987. Read:Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning It was the year that Ioanna Vergou, deputy mayor of the northern Greek town of Skydra, was born. The town of 5,500 briefly ranked among the hottest in the country. She said municipal workers had been given earlier shifts and those needing public services were handed water and sent to an air-conditioned waiting area. “Many people here have compared the heat wave to what happened in 1987,” she said. “But hopefully it will be easier this time round. We are all just waiting for it to pass.”

Firefighters struggled to contain an exploding Northern California wildfire under blazing temperatures as another heat wave blanketed the West, prompting an excessive heat warning for inland and desert areas. Death Valley in southeastern California’s Mojave Desert reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53 Celsius) on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service’s reading at Furnace Creek. The shockingly high temperature was actually lower than the previous day, when the location reached 130 F (54 C). If confirmed as accurate, the 130-degree reading would be the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when Furnace Creek desert hit 1,34 F (57 C), considered the highest measured temperature on Earth. About 300 miles (483 kilometers) northwest of the sizzling desert, the largest wildfire of the year in California was raging along the border with Nevada. The Beckwourth Complex Fire — a combination of two lightning-caused fires burning 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Lake Tahoe — showed no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size between Friday and Saturday. Read: Study: Northwest heat wave impossible without climate change Late Saturday, flames jumped Interstate 395 and was threatening properties in Nevada’s Washoe County. “Take immediate steps to protect large animals and livestock,” the The Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District tweeted. The blaze, which was only 8% contained, increased dramatically to 86 square miles (222 square kilometers) as firefighters sweltered in 100-degree temperatures. It was one of several threatening homes across Western states that were expected to see triple-digit heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region. Pushed by strong winds, a wildfire in southern Oregon doubled in size to 120 square miles (311 square kilometers) Saturday as it raced through heavy timber in the Fremont-Winema National Forest near the Klamath County town of Sprague River. The National Weather Service warned the dangerous conditions could cause heat-related illnesses, while California’s power grid operator issued a statewide Flex Alert from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday to avoid disruptions and rolling blackouts. Read:Hundreds believed dead in heat wave despite efforts to help in Northwest The California Independent System Operator warned of potential power shortage, not only because of mounting heat, but because a wildfire in southern Oregon was threatening transmission lines that carry imported power to California. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation on Friday suspending rules to allow for more power capacity, and the ISO requested emergency assistance from other states. On Saturday, Newsom issued another proclamation allowing the emergency use of auxiliary ship engines to relieve pressure on the electric grid. Palm Springs in Southern California hit a record high temperature of 120 F (49 C) Saturday. It was the fourth time temperatures have reached 120 degrees so far this year, the Desert Sun reported. In California’s agricultural Central Valley, 100-degree temperatures blanketed the region, with Fresno reaching 111 degrees F (44 C), just one degree short of the all-time high for the date, Las Vegas late Saturday afternoon tied the all-time record high of 117 F (47 C), the National Weather Service said. The city has recorded that record-high temperature four other times, most recently in June 2017. NV Energy, Nevada’s largest power provider, also urged customers to conserve electricity Saturday and Sunday evenings because of the heat wave and wildfires affecting transmission lines throughout the region. Read:Blackouts in US Northwest due to heat wave, deaths reported In Southern California, a brush fire sparked by a burning big rig in eastern San Diego County forced evacuations of two Native American reservations Saturday. In north-central Arizona, Yavapai County on Saturday lifted an evacuation warning for Black Canyon City, an unincorporated town 43 miles (66 kilometers) north of Phoenix, after a fire in nearby mountains no longer posed a threat. In Mohave County, Arizona, two firefighters died Saturday after a aircraft they were in to respond to a small wildfire crashed, local media reported. A wildfire in southeast Washington grew to almost 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) as it blackened grass and timber while it moved into the Umatilla National Forest. In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little declared a wildfire emergency Friday and mobilized the state’s National Guard to help fight fires sparked after lightning storms swept across the drought-stricken region.

The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Oregon and Washington state said Wednesday they were investigating hundreds of deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered all-time records in the normally temperate region. British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period. “While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather,” LaPointe said in a statement. Many homes in Vancouver, much like Seattle, don’t have air conditioning, leaving people ill-prepared for soaring temperatures. Read:Blackouts in US Northwest due to heat wave, deaths reported “Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” Vancouver police Sgt. Steve Addison said in a statement. Oregon health officials said more than 60 deaths have been tied to the heat, with the state’s largest county, Multnomah, blaming the weather for 45 deaths since temperatures spiked Friday. At least 20 deaths in Washington state have been linked to the heat, a number that was expected to rise. The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense. Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius). While the temperatures had cooled considerably in western Washington, Oregon and British Columbia by Wednesday, interior regions were still sweating through triple-digit temperatures as the weather system moved east into the intermountain West and the Plains. Amid the dangerous heat and drought gripping the American West, crews were closely monitoring wildfires that can explode in the extreme weather. Read:Northwest US faces hottest day of intense heat wave Heat warnings were in place for parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana as well as Saskatchewan and southern Alberta, where “a prolonged, dangerous, and historic heat wave will persist through this week,” Environment Canada said. “The temperatures recorded this week are unprecedented — lives have been lost and the risk of wildfires is at a dangerously high level,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. In Oregon, the Multnomah County medical examiner blamed 45 heat deaths on hyperthermia, an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with heat. The victims ranged in age from 44 to 97. The county that includes Portland said that between 2017 and 2019, there were only 12 hyperthermia deaths in all of Oregon. “This was a true health crisis that has underscored how deadly an extreme heat wave can be, especially to otherwise vulnerable people,” Dr. Jennifer Vines, the county’s health officer, said in a statement. The King County medical examiner’s office, which covers an area including Seattle, said on Wednesday that a total of 13 people had died from heat-related causes. In neighboring Snohomish County, three men — ages 51, 75 and 77 — died after experiencing heatstroke in their homes, the medical examiner’s office told the Daily Herald in Everett, Washington, on Tuesday. Four deaths have also been linked to heat in Kitsap County, west of Seattle. In western Washington, the Spokane Fire Department found two people dead in an apartment building Wednesday who had been suffering symptoms of heat-related stress, TV station KREM reported. Read:UN: Don’t forget to save species while fixing global warming The heat led a power company in Spokane to impose rolling blackouts because of the strain on the electrical grid. Avista Utilities says it’s trying to limit outages to one hour per customer. Heather Rosentrater, an Avista vice president for energy delivery, said the outages were a distribution problem and did not stem from a lack of electricity in the system. Renee Swecker, 66, of Clayton, Washington, visited a splashpad fountain in downtown Spokane’s Riverfront Park with her grandchildren Wednesday, saying they “are going everywhere where there is water.” “I’m praying for rain every day,” Swecker said.

The unprecedented Northwest U.S. heat wave that slammed Seattle and Portland, Oregon, moved inland Tuesday — prompting a electrical utility in Spokane, Washington, to resume rolling blackouts amid heavy power demand. Officials said more than a half-dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to the intense heat that began late last week. The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celcius) was expected to ease in those cities. But inland Spokane saw temperatures spike. The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 F (42.2 C) in Spokane— the highest temperature ever recorded there. Read:Northwest US faces hottest day of intense heat wave About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people. “We try to limit outages to one hour per customer,” said Heather Rosentrater, an Avista vice president for energy delivery. She said about 2,400 customers were without power as of shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday, mostly on the north side of the city, and those customers had been alerted about the planned outage. About 21,000 customers were warned Tuesday morning that they might experience an outage, she said. Avista had to implement deliberate blackouts on Monday because “the electric system experienced a new peak demand, and the strain of the high temperatures impacted the system in a way that required us to proactively turn off power for some customers,” said company president and chief executive Dennis Vermillion. “This happened faster than anticipated.” Rosentrater said the outages were a distribution problem, and did not stem from a lack of electricity in the system Meanwhile, authorities said multiple recent deaths in the region were possibly related to the scorching weather. The King County Medical Examiner’s office said two people died due to hyperthermia, meaning their bodies had became dangerously overheated. The Seattle Times reported they were a 65-year-old Seattle woman and a 68-year-old Enumclaw, Washington, woman. The heat may have claimed the life of a worker on a nursery in Oregon, the state’s worker safety agency, known as Oregon OSHA, said on Tuesday. The man who died was from Guatemala and had apparently arrived in the United States only a few months ago, said Andres Pablo Lucas, owner of Brother Farm Labor Contractor that provided workers for the nursery, including the man who died. The man, whose name was not disclosed, died at Ernst Nursery and Farms, a wholesale supplier in St. Paul, 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Salem, on Saturday amid sweltering temperatures. An Oregon OSHA database listed the death as heat-related. Read:No ET, no answers: Intel report is inconclusive about UFOs “The employee was working on a crew moving irrigation lines. At the end of the shift he was found unresponsive in the field,” said agency spokesman Aaron Corvin. Speaking in Spanish, Pablo Lucas said when workers gathered together shortly after noon on Saturday, they noticed one of them was missing. They began searching and found his body. Pablo Lucas said he didn’t remember the man’s name. Pablo Lucas said the laborers often have the option to start working near sunrise when it is cooler and can stop around midday, but some want to stay regardless of the heat. “The people want to work, to fight to succeed,” he said. “For that reason, they stay.” Officials in Bremerton, Washington, said heat may have contributed to four deaths in that Puget Sound city. But Vince Hlavaty, Bremerton’s medical officer, told the Kitsap Sun that firefighters cannot say definitively whether the heat was the cause of death. In Bend, Oregon, authorities said the deaths of two homeless people in extreme heat may have been weather-related. The United Farm Workers urged Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to immediately issue emergency heat standards protecting all farm and other outdoor workers in the state with a strong agricultural sector. The state’s current heat standards fall short of safeguards the UFW first won in California in 2005 that have prevented deaths and illnesses from heat stroke, the union said in a statement. Unlike workers in California, Washington state farm workers do not have the right to work shade and breaks amid extreme temperatures. “I was off today so I was helping distribute water and information to the cherry harvesters,” said Martha Acevedo, a wine grape worker from Sunnyside, Washington, said in a union statement. “They were struggling. No shade, not even cold water.” Read:UN: Don’t forget to save species while fixing global warming Seattle was cooler Tueday with temperatures expected to reach about 90 F (32.2 C) after registering 108 degrees F (42 Celsius) on Monday — well above Sunday’s all-time high of 104 F (40 C). Portland, Oregon, reached 116 F (46.6 C) after hitting records of 108 F (42 C) on Saturday and 112 F (44 C) on Sunday. President Joe Biden, during an infrastructure speech in Wisconsin, took note of the Northwest as he spoke about the need to be prepared for extreme weather. “Anybody ever believe you’d turn on the news and see it’s 116 degrees in Portland Oregon? 116 degrees,” the president said, working in a dig at those who cast doubt on the reality of climate change. “But don’t worry -- there is no global warming because it’s just a figment of our imaginations.” The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more extreme.