Southern California is battling record heat and the consequences associated with it: wildfires and crowded beaches.


A blaze has so far burned more than 1,100 acres in Kern County near the communities of Frazier Park and Lebec, spread by dry winds and hotter than normal triple-digit temperatures.

Temperatures along the coast are as much as 30 degrees cooler, with Santa Monica for example at a comfortable 68 degrees. The same dry winds spreading fires in the desert are also creating dangerous waves along the beaches, however. The combination of high surf combined with unusually large crowds have kept lifeguards all along the coast of Southern California very busy performing rescues.

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A rancher in San Bernardino County, near Needles, California, alerted officials of dehydrated wild burros who were dying in the heat in the the Piute Mountain Wilderness Area. The Federal Bureau of Land Management said that troughs have been established to save the remaining burros and airlifts of water have been established to keep the troughs filled.



In related news, RT reports that in Brazil's Sao Paolo state, a combination of dry winds and wildfires have created a rare "fire tornado," witnessed by many at a nearby highway. Brazilian authorities, like their counterparts in Russia and the western United States have been struggling to contain an outbreak of fires due to unusually high temperature and dry conditions.


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