"Temperature Records Fall Across the West"

...It has been more of a binge for Boise and much of the West this week as a high-pressure system scorched the Southwest with record-breaking temperatures, well over 110 in places, and pushed northward into Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Wildfires kicked up, too. Federal fire officials said that Thursday was the busiest day of the year, with 365 new fires reported. With weeks of drought, the heat wave and forecasts for lightning but little rainfall this weekend, firefighting crews took up positions in eastern Oregon, Nevada, Utah and California, and they are expecting the worst.

“This is absolutely the recipe,” said Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center here.

[Heat records have been falling across the West, with Boise hitting 104 degrees on Thursday and reached 105, a record, on Friday. In Phoenix, where it was 113 at 4:30 Friday afternoon, the temperature has reached or exceeded 110 for 10 days in a row.]

On Thursday, when the temperature hit 115, the Arizona Public Service Company, the state’s largest electric utility, recorded its highest peak usage of the year, said a spokesman, Damon Gross.

In Las Vegas, the 116-degree temperature on Thursday tied a 1985 record and kept all but the hardiest souls from venturing out. The normal high and low for this time of year is 104 degrees and 77 degrees, so heat is always a matter of perspective. But it was abnormal enough for the city to open several cooling stations in recreation centers....