As heat waves become more frequent and severe, hospitals are seeing more patients admitted with serious, sometimes life-threatening burns from asphalt and other outdoor surfaces.
Severe burns from contact with hot outdoor surfaces are becoming more common in the Southwest, where temperatures are hitting record highs.
According to an article by Adeel Hassan and Isabelle Taft in The New York Times, unhoused people, the elderly, and children are among some of the groups most vulnerable to these types of burns. Patients often require surgery and, in some cases, the burns can be fatal.
When air temperature rises, surfaces like asphalt and concrete become superheated. “For example, when the air temperature in Las Vegas reaches 115 degrees — as it did seven days in a row last week — the pavement temperature can climb to 160 degrees. At that intensity, it takes a few seconds of contact to sustain a second-degree burn, and a few minutes to get a third-degree burn.”
In 2023, The Arizona Burn Center in Phoenix admitted 136 patients for contact burns, 14 of whom died. So far this year, 50 patients have been admitted and four have died.
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
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Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research