PUYALLUP, Wash. — On hot days, knowing the hottest spots in your area can be life-saving.
Pierce County has identified the hottest places inside the county and have developed strategies to mitigate.
The research was conducted by on Aug. 4, 2024, a day with a forecast of over 85 degrees. Volunteers had sensors attached to their cars, driving through their normal day, while taking notes on the environment along the way.
In Pierce County, communities and neighborhoods that are further from bodies of water, near warehouse districts, large swaths of asphalt parking lots, or that don’t have a dense tree canopy are the most prone to the heat.
Many of those are concentrated in Fife, Puyallup, and Sumner.
“That has a real effect on people who live near there and can cause heat stroke and other issues. So, it was very informative to figure out the areas and those are areas where we can focus our tree planting work,” said Ryan Dicks, the leader of the Pierce County Office of Resilience and Climate Action.
A decade of tree-planting work will take place in the Western and Central stretches of the county, Dicks said. They’re also looking at other changes, like working with developers of new warehouse or parking lot spaces to plant trees before the project.
“We’re very focused on trying to find solutions and working with the current businesses that are there is going to be important,” Dicks said.
The National Weather Service reports that extreme heat is the most deadly weather phenomenon in the country.
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