Heat has claimed the lives of more people in 2024 in Southern Nevada than in any prior year on record, officials said.
The latest round of heat-related-death data from the Clark County coroner’s office, released on Thursday, shows that heat was a factor in the deaths of 342 people. It’s without question that the toll will continue to rise, especially as it can take up to 90 days to determine a cause of death – and whether heat was a factor.
Clark County began to pull out heat as a contributing factor in more deaths in 2021 when Melanie Rouse was named head of the office.
It was then that the office began to look at heat as a separate contributing cause of death.
“We will inevitably see this number climb,” Rouse said in a Thursday interview.
Rouse, who based Clark County’s tracking on her experience investigating deaths in Phoenix, said she sees the country’s opioid and fentanyl crisis as inherently linked to rising heat-related deaths, as using drugs can decrease the body’s ability to regulate its temperature.
The previous record came in 2023 with 309 heat-related deaths, according to coroner’s office data. An update earlier this month placed this year’s total at 224.
This year has brought Las Vegas a record summer in many ways, made more intense by climate change, with the city experiencing its all-time record of 120 degrees. The city has seen more than 100 triple-digit temperature days – the most since 1947 – and more are expected this week, according to the National Weather Service.
