Motorcyclist dies of heat exposure in Death Valley as temperature reaches 128°F | Extreme Heat

A visitor to Death Valley National Park died Sunday from heat exposure and another person was hospitalized as temperatures reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53.3 degrees Celsius) in eastern California, authorities said.

The two visitors were part of a group of six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area in scorching weather, the park said.

The deceased has not been identified. The other rider was hospitalized in Las Vegas with “severe heat illness,” the statement said. The other four members of the group were treated at the scene.

“Heat that intense can pose a real threat to your health,” said park manager Mike Reynolds.

“In addition to not being able to cool down while riding due to high ambient temperatures, experiencing Death Valley on a motorcycle in this hot weather is further complicated by the heavy safety gear needed to reduce injury in the event of an accident,” Reynolds said.

The death comes as a prolonged heat wave has broken temperature records across the United States, with about 36 million people – or about 10% of the country – under excessive heat warnings, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Bryan Jackson said.

Dozens of locations in the Pacific West and Northwest are expected to match or break previous heat records, he said.

That’s what happened this weekend: Many areas of Northern California exceeded 110.3 degrees Fahrenheit, with the city of Redding hitting a record high of 118.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Phoenix set a new record for the lowest daily temperature on Sunday: it never dropped below 91.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

Triple-digit temperatures were common across Oregon, where several records were broken, including in Salem, where they reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, surpassing the 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37.2 degrees Celsius) mark set in 1960.

Rare heat advisories have been extended even to higher elevations, including around Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risks, even in the mountains.”

The NWS is also warning of increased wildfire risks due to a mix of hot, dry and windy conditions. In Southern California, residents were ordered Saturday night to evacuate parts of Santa Barbara County where the Lake Fire has burned more than 13,000 acres since Friday, according to Cal Fire.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which links human activities such as burning fossil fuels to greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, each of the past 12 months has ranked as the warmest on record in annual comparisons across the world.

Last week, the Joe Biden administration proposed the first-ever safety standard to protect workers and communities from the effects of extreme heat.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.