The heat is on

YAKIMA, Wash. — Dust off your sunglasses. Break out your sunscreen. Summer has arrived in the Yakima Valley, and it's a scorcher.

How much of a scorcher? Enough that the region is one of only two places in the nation hot enough to warrant a heat advisory from the National Weather Service.

The advisory ends this evening. But temperatures are expected to be in the high-90s and could even break the 100-degree mark this weekend.

Until then follow the usual, but all too frequently ignored, advice.

Drink water or beverages that replenish electrolytes lost from sweat, such as Gatorade, even when you don't feel thirst, said Juan Acosta, an emergency room physician at Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center.

"By the time you get thirsty, your body has already lost too much fluid," he said.

Heat-related illnesses are most easily avoided by holding off on all strenuous outdoor activity and staying somewhere cool.

"Even the mall," Acosta said. "The mall has excellent air conditioning. Just don't spend too much money."

Doctors also advise shunning diuretics, such as caffeine and alcohol, and avoiding substances that could impair judgment.

That's especially good advice if you plan to be among the scores of people floating the Yakima River.

"The majority of our (water) incidents are alcohol-related," said Kittitas County Undersheriff Clayton Meyers.

The best and safest section of the river for floaters is within the Yakima Canyon, Meyers said.

Along with the hot weather comes an increased threat of fire.

The state Department of Natural Resources has declared 18 counties, including Yakima, Kittitas, Klickitat and Benton, at high risk of fire danger.

Campfires are banned on the National Forest's Naches Ranger District as well as at camping spots in the Yakima Canyon.

Naches Ranger District public information officer Douglas Jenkins said while the fire threat is listed as "high," it's on its way to extreme.

It's already too late north of the border.

Fires ravaging British Columbia's Okanogan Valley, about 80 miles north of the U.S. border, have been sending a haze southward that's been clouding Yakima's otherwise sunny skies.

The diminished air quality has prompted the Yakima Clean Air Agency to declare a burn ban across Yakima County.

This story has been updated to correct information regarding which hospital Dr. Juan Acosta serves as an emergency room physician.