Shutterstock photo illustration
A young person’s burned feet await treatment in this photo illustration. So far this year, 26 people have been admitted to the burn center at University Medical Center with pavement burns, said Yasmin Conaway, the hospital’s burn program manager.
Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022 | 2 a.m.
On a scorching Las Vegas afternoon, with temperatures climbing as high as 117 degrees, an ill-advised barefoot sprint to the mailbox or out to the pool can be more than painful.
It can be dangerous, with the soles of the feet blistering and burning on pavement or rocks can reach up to 170 degrees under the midday sun.
“It’s like a real-life game of ‘the floor is lava,’ ” said Paul Chestovich, an associate professor at UNLV’s Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine. “If you go outside on a hot day in Las Vegas and touch something long enough, it will burn you.”
And it can only take a few minutes to suffer serious burns, Chestovich said. In worst-case scenarios, pavement burns can require surgery and skin grafts, he said.
The most dangerous time of the day for burns is between 2 and 4 p.m., when temperatures are at their peak and the sun has been beating down on the pavement for hours. A second- or third-degree burn could occur in less than a minute of exposure.
The average high temperature in July and August is just over 100 degrees, with stretches of much hotter days. The record for Las Vegas is 117 degrees, a high matched last year on July 10.
In Las Vegas, Chestovich said, “summer months, from a heat perspective, are brutal,” and while many people “are aware of heat exhaustion or heat stroke,” fewer know about the dangers of someone fainting and developing life-threatening pavement burns.
A UNLV study, which looked at 173 pavement burn cases from 2013 to 2017, found 79% of burns occurred when the temperature was 90 degrees or higher.
So far this year, 26 people have been admitted to the burn center at University Medical Center with pavement burns, said Yasmin Conaway, the hospital’s burn program manager.
Those most at risk for pavement burns are young children and older adults with thinner skin, the homeless, diabetics with neuropathy and people with medical conditions that may cause them to fall onto the hot pavement, she said.
To help prevent burns, UMC collects flip-flops to give to the homeless to protect their feet. Members of the hospital’s Lions Burn Care Center team also talk to the public about the dangers of pavement burns.
The hot pavement is also dangerous for pets.
Even 80-degree weather can cause pavements to reach temperatures above 120 degrees, which can burn pet paws “in seconds,” according to the Las Vegas Fire & Rescue.
Gavi Simon, a licensed veterinary technician and assistant practice manager at the Animal Kindness Veterinary Hospital, said that while all animals are at risk of paw burns, dogs — especially the older ones and breeds like pugs that have “smushed” faces — are most vulnerable.
Because dogs regulate their temperatures through their paws, they become able to develop heat stroke as well as paw burns, Simon said. Heat stroke can cause their internal temperatures to rise above 105 degrees, which may lead to death.
“They’re resilient, but they’re not tough as nails,” Simon said. “The worst-case scenario that could happen is they overheat because their paws are one of the only ways for them to thermal regulate.”
To protect pet paws, Simon suggests getting protective boots for pets, walking them before 7 a.m. or at least two hours after sunset, and finding alternative walking methods for older pets that may not be able to handle the heat.
