Pima heat deaths, illnesses hit record highs

Pima County health officials are seeing record numbers of heat-related deaths and illnesses in 2026, coinciding with a stretch of record high temperatures this summer.

The number of confirmed heat-related deaths grew to 126 – not counting undocumented immigrants traveling through remote desert areas – by September, while the number of heat-related illnesses was 930, the Pima County Health Department reported.

The spiked took place despite local governments and nonprofits pooling more resources into mitigating the issue than ever before.

Nate Young, a program manager for the department’s Office of Heat Response and Relief, said those numbers have since grown to 151 and 1,013, respectively, on Thursday.

By Thursday, the number of 2026 deaths counted by the Health Department already surpassed the total number tallied for the entire previous year. 117 area people died from heat-related causes in 2025, not counting undocumented border crossers.

Because the Medical Examiner’s Office can take up to eight weeks to determine if heat factored into a death, Young said, data from this summer has yet to be finalized and more could be counted.

“We know people are tired of hearing ‘historical’ and ‘unprecedented’ when it comes to extreme heat,” he said. “But we have new and historic challenges that we have to navigate.”

Young added that the current heat and illness numbers include increases in heat-related deaths among elderly adults and homeless people, plus heat-related overdose deaths and indoor deaths.

The latter are largely a result of insufficient air conditioning systems inside mobile homes, according to Young.

The Health Department also considers 2026 the hottest year on record in Southern Arizona, based on the highs from each day.

March in Southern Arizona saw unseasonably hot weather, with highs reaching triple digits by the third week of that month. Four people died that month from heat-related causes.

The Pima County Heat Relief Network, comprised of the Pima department, local municipalities and nonprofits, also had the highest number of organizations involved this year and opened a record number of cooling centers throughout Pima County.

“This year, we asked centers to start opening in April,” said Young, whose office oversees designated public cooling centers and stocks them with heat-relief supplies.

He said this is also the first time the Heat Response and Relief division was included within the Health Department’s overall budget.
Prior to July, the office was funded solely by grants.

“We aren’t going anywhere. Our funding is secure,” he said.

Young confirmed the rising numbers of deaths and illness would change the network’s tactics for providing public heat-safety resources, but he couldn’t say exactly how on Tuesday.

The department and representatives from other network organizations plan to meet before the end of October to assess the data available and determine how their heat-response methods will adapt ahead of the next summer.

“We’re really going to do a deep dive on what was different this season from other seasons,” Young said.

He added that they’ll also discuss contingency plans for if extreme heat happens outside of the summer months.

And despite the amount of time, energy and money invested into heat safety efforts, Young said it was “disheartening” to have lost so many residents and visitors in Pima County to extreme heat.

“It didn’t translate into the metrics that mattered: Keeping people safe, keeping people out of the hospital, keeping people alive.”