Free tool · Scarlet Beast

When it’s dangerously hot

For people in the United States in heat that can hurt: in a home with no air conditioning, outside or living in a car, or working in it. For the neighbor, the son or daughter, the coworker, the stranger who notices. And for anyone who can’t pay to keep cool. Heat stroke: the signs, and what to do. Heat exhaustion, cramps, fainting and rash. Cooling down without air conditioning. Water. Outside, or in a car. Children, pets and cars. Checking on someone. Older people, babies, pregnancy and illness. The power, and the bill. Heat alerts. Working in the heat. And the words to say when you call or write. No quiz and no score. One thing at a time.

This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The facts come from pages read on October 2, 2026: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (About Heat and Your Health; People at Increased Risk for Heat-Related Illness; and its pages on older adults, infants and children, chronic conditions, people without air conditioning, outdoor workers and pregnancy); MedlinePlus, from the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Heat Illness: the summary); the U.S. National Institute on Aging (Hot Weather Safety for Older Adults); the U.S. National Weather Service (Heat Cramps, Exhaustion, Stroke; During a Heat Wave; Children, Pets and Vehicles; and Understanding Heat Alerts); Ready.gov (Extreme Heat); the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Heat; Heat-Related Illnesses and First Aid; Protecting New Workers; and File a Complaint); the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Heat-related Illnesses); the U.S. Administration for Children and Families (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program); and the front page of 211.org. The descriptions of the 988 Lifeline and Crisis Text Line are from their own front pages, read the same day. 211 and Crisis Text Line are private organisations describing themselves; we have no connection with either. We did not call or text any line, contact any cooling center, program, utility or office, or search any directory or dashboard. We did not read any first aid manual or CPR course, any clinical guideline, any law or regulation, any state’s shutoff rules or income limits, any city’s cooling center rules, or the research behind any statement; where the page touches one of these, it says so. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s heatstroke page refused our request, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ heat pages had moved, so neither is used. Where two sources say different things, the page reports both: how to cool someone with heat stroke, whether to give a drink, fans, where to go for heat exhaustion, how hot heat stroke is, and what counts as extreme heat. The page has no questionnaire and gives no score, on purpose: a list is not an assessment. It names no medicine, quotes no named person, and gives no figures for how many people are harmed by heat; the sources have them, with their context. The temperatures and times on the page are the sources’ own. Lines marked “Ours” are our own suggestions; there are more of them than usual in the part about being outside or living in a car, because the official pages say little about it. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Scarlet Beast is not a shelter, a clinic or a government agency, and takes no money from anyone named here. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].