PHOENIX — Maricopa County has confirmed 18 heat-related deaths this season, more than triple the five recorded at this point last year, with another 215 under investigation.
The spike threatens to reverse a two-year decline in heat fatalities.
“Those 18 deaths are, of course, preventable,” Kelli Donley Williams, deputy director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, told KTAR News 92.3 FM. “We’re always trying to encourage people to call 211 to get into air conditioning, to be heat-wise, to use the heat relief network and to use the resources that are available to them.”
The county recorded 430 heat-related deaths for all of 2025, down from 608 in 2024 and a record 645 in 2023.
Donley Williams attributed the early spike to an unusually warm spring.
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