Extreme heat creates dangerous conditions inside your car. What you need to know
PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- It's not just the temperature outside that you need to worry about. Inside a parked car, some surfaces can reach nearly 200 degrees within minutes.
During those extreme heat waves, getting into the car can feel like opening an oven. Pasadena firefighters are warning how dangerous that could be.
With a temperature gun in hand, firefighter and EMT Owen Wilson showed ABC7 just how hot it can get inside your car.
"The dashboard right now says 128 and climbing," Wilson said.
Climbing is the key word.
"Even when I point at this thing," Wilson said, holding the temp gun to a seat belt buckle. "... this is getting to like 150, 160. So it's very dangerous."
And every surface you'd touch?
"The steering wheel right there in the sun is 152, in the shade goes down to 130. Let's see the seat. That right there is 174, 176... 180 now."
All temperatures to actually burn your skin.
"First-degree burns are probably in the range of like 110 to 130, and anything above that is when you really want to start getting concerned, and you'll start seeing redness, swelling, stuff like that."
And if the surfaces are that hot, imagine the air you're breathing when you're just sitting in your car.
"The longer we sit here, the worse it's going to get," Wilson said. "Starting within that first 30 seconds to a minute, you're going to start feeling that heat stress."
Thirty seconds for an adult is unbearable. For a child or pet who can't open the door, it's deadly.
Up on the dashboard in the sun, 160, here, 120, the ceiling is 122, the longer we sit here, the worse it's going to get.
"There's nobody around them to kind of get them out and, at some point, they're going to go unconscious," said Capt. Victor Lazaryan.
Which is why firefighters say cracking the windows isn't a solution - and just a few minutes isn't worth the risk.
If you see a child or pet in distress inside a car, call 911 immediately.
This isn't just a warning about what could happen. Earlier this year, a 4-year-old girl from Valley Village died after being left in a hot car. The high temperature that day was 87 degrees.
