LOS ANGELES (AP) — Temperatures approached triple digits in much of California on Saturday afternoon and surpassed 100 degrees in inland areas as a steaming autumn in the state seemed more like an endless summer.
Heat in the low 90s was felt in the normally temperate San Francisco Bay Area, and it reached the upper 90s in the Sacramento area.
Throngs of thousands who crammed Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival were chugging water and dumping it on their heads as they danced to banjos and fiddles in the midday swelter, with many wearing shorts and little else.
The mercury was at 95 degrees in downtown Los Angeles by midday and over 100 in the suburbs of San Bernardino County.
Normally closed for the season by now, the Raging Waters theme park in San Dimas, where it reached 102 degrees Saturday afternoon, was open to provide relief and recreation for another weekend.
In San Jose, some sought icy refuge during the public skating hours of at the Sharks’ hockey practice facility. “It’s so hot outside. We couldn’t think of anything else to do except to come to the ice rink where it’s not 95 degrees,” Clarissa Harwell told KGO-TV.
A high-pressure system extending over the western part of the country, along with Santa Ana winds that blow across deserts and down mountain canyons before arriving in Southern California, are generating the sweltering conditions.
The heat brought a red-flag warning of critical wildfire conditions through Saturday night, the National Weather Service said.
The U.S. Forest Service has implemented 24-hour firefighter staffing. The Los Angeles County Fire Department has beefed up many of its firefighting crews from three to four people and stationed extra equipment in strategic locations.
“We’ve got wind, heat — the perfect combination, everything in alignment for a potential brush fire,” fire Capt. Rich Moody said as he and his crew patrolled a Southern California hillside.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is urging people to set thermostats at 78 degrees.
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