The map of the National Weather Service shows purple for the coming days in the western United States, the symbolic color for excessive heat.

In Death Valley, about 300 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles, the temperature recorded on Sunday was more than 54 degrees Celsius, one of the highest temperatures since records began - the third day in a row.

On Saturday, the weather service at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, the hottest zone in the world according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, registered 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius), and on Friday as well. The average daily temperature in the Valley of Death is 46 degrees in July. Despite the ongoing heat wave, it was not enough to set their own record for the time being. On July 10, 1913, 56.7 degrees Celsius had been measured in Death Valley.

While hundreds of visitors came to the Mojave Desert at the weekend to have their photos taken at the thermometers in Furnace Creek, several thousand emergency services were busy extinguishing the fire in California and neighboring states such as Nevada, Oregon and Arizona. About 80 kilometers north of Lake Tahoe, the Beckwourth Complex Fire, the largest California conflagration of the year to date, spread over more than 340 square kilometers by Sunday. At temperatures of almost 40 degrees and strong gusts of wind, the flames have now also reached Nevada. Thousands had to leave their homes, and around 20 buildings burned down in the small town of Doyle. In the Mohave district of Arizona, two firefighters were killed when their plane crashed during a control flight over the Cedar Basin Fire.

The National Weather Service issued further heat warnings for more than 30 million residents in the American west and southwest on Monday. The network operator California Independent System Operator also warned to save electricity and requested support from network operators in neighboring countries. Since the flames also threatened high-voltage lines between Oregon and California, large-scale power outages in both states cannot be ruled out.