In June 2021, Steve Carr set out to check on fellow Vietnam veterans he thought might be at risk in the heat.

He’d been living in Portland since 1974 and very rarely recalled temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. During those last few days in June 2021, the National Weather Service forecast highs could reach 107 degrees.

On his list was Fred Fah, a disabled veteran who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and then with the National Guard in Portland, and who had been a member of the chapter for at least 20 years.

The call went smoothly. Fah, who lived alone in a trailer home in Milwaukie, assured Carr that he was fine. Fah, 66, did not have any air conditioning in his home. He didn’t ask Carr for any help.

But temperatures far exceeded what forecasters initially predicted. Heat scorched the region day after day for at least 10 days, with little overnight relief.

On June 28, Portland hit a record high of 116 degrees. That night, temperatures only dropped to 75 degrees.

Less than a week after assuring Carr that he would be fine, Fah died.

“When they found him, he was laid out in the living room, I think, on his couch and trying to stay cool,” Carr said. “And he never got cool.”

Fah was one of 102 people who died in Oregon due to the heat during the record-breaking heat dome of 2021. Many died in the same circumstances as Fah — alone in their homes with no air conditioning. Others perished days later, their bodies unable to recover from the effects of extreme heat.

Ashlyn T. Maddox was born and raised in Portland. She attended Benson High School and later became a registered nurse. She was 36 when she died of a heat-related illness July 9, 2021.

It was Oregon’s first, shocking, preview of a new, hotter era. Five years later, the globe continues to warm — and leaders in the state have pushed hard to adapt.

Scientists know more about how extreme heat affects people’s bodies. Local governments are quicker to open cooling centers when temperatures climb. Thousands of people now have air conditioning at home — including Oregonians who could not afford it on their own.

But as the Northwest heads into what could be another hot summer, gaps remain.

‘The worst heat wave ever’

The only place hotter than Oregon during that final week of 2021 was the Mojave Desert. Long summer days, high pressure systems and climate change collided, trapping hot air and pushing temperatures as high as 118 degrees in some parts of the state. A heat dome blanketed British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

“If a bunch of mad scientists came together to design the worst heat wave ever, this is probably what they would’ve designed,” said Paul Loikith, Portland State University associate professor of earth environment and society.

And as the continued burning of fossil fuels like oil and gas makes human-caused climate change worse, weather events like heat waves are becoming more frequent and more extreme.

Fatal heat has become a grim reality.

In 2022, the year after the heat dome that took more than 100 Oregonian lives, heat contributed to 23 deaths in the state, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

The following year, the death toll was eight. In 2024, it was 21 and for 2025 it was nine.

The 2021 heat dome sparked close to 100 scientific studies aimed at better understanding what happened and how to be better prepared in the future, Loikith said.

The resulting data is shaping public policy and helping Oregon lawmakers and local leaders as they try to prevent more deaths.

Quiet but with a quick, sarcastic sense of humor, Andrea Lynn Miller is remembered for her kind heart and love of animals. She was 49 when she died of a heat-related illness on June 30, 2021.

Among the lessons of 2021: Residents of manufactured homes, RVs or trailers, like Fred Fah, are the most vulnerable people in Oregon when temperatures climb. These homes rarely have air conditioning or heat pumps. Even when they do have in-home cooling, they’re typically poorly insulated, leaking cool air on hot days and are susceptible to the outside environment.

Affordability was also an issue. Residents of these homes can’t always afford the in-home cooling that could make a difference. AC units or heat pumps can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and can push up the electricity bill.

The data also revealed that where you live matters.

Multnomah County found that many of the 2021 heat dome’s deaths were in places located in or near urban heat islands. These places are dominated by concrete or industrial buildings, large roadways, parking lots and little to no tree canopy.

Tree canopy was found to be a major factor on why some areas, like Portland’s Ladd’s Addition, were much cooler than places with little to none like East Portland.

A call to action

For Oregon legislators, the heat dome was a wake-up call.

Before June 2021, Oregon had no statewide laws that required homes to have cooling or landlords to provide cooling devices to their tenants. Some renters did not have legal rights to AC or heat pumps, even to units they paid for themselves.

As the death toll climbed, lawmakers felt a call to action.

Vietnam veteran Joseph A. Haran graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Communications and Journalism after returning from the war. Haran worked in broadcast media and enjoyed the arts. He was a fan of fiction, nonfiction, film screenings and loved his cats. He was 77 when he died of a heat-related illness on June 30, 2021.

They proposed a series of bills, known as the Emergency Heat Relief Package, to bring new protections to Oregonians — including a push to deploy heat pumps and air conditioning in apartments and housing across the state.

State Rep. Pam Marsh, who co-sponsored the legislation, said the Rental Heat Pump Program it created is her “favorite program of all time.”

“I was adamant that we had to include a renter element to this because it’s been frustrating,” she said. “Many of our energy efficiency programs have really not included renters, because renters fall through the cracks, right? It’s not always to a landlord’s monetary advantage to invest in energy efficiency or upgrades to a rental unit, and renters don’t have the capacity, aren’t going to be there long enough to make those kinds of improvements themselves.”

The bill also directed the Oregon Health Authority to create an emergency response program that included distributing free air conditioning units.

The following year, lawmakers passed the Climate Resilience Package, which was a compilation of bills that set a goal for the state to install 500,000 heat pumps by 2030 and to increase energy efficiency in homes.

The federal Inflation Reduction Act, which provided hundreds of billions of dollars for climate action nationwide, helped the state fund more heat pumps.

These programs proved to be popular.

The Oregon Department of Energy has since installed more than 8,000 heat pumps in 33 out of Oregon’s 36 counties — many going to low- to moderate-income residents. The Oregon Health Authority’s emergency program distributed more than 11,400 ACs before it exhausted all its funds.

Oregon is getting hotter. This state program is helping thousands of renters stay cool

Portland turns to its climate fund

In Portland, a billion dollar climate-action fund voters set up before the heat dome has become an essential tool for keeping residents cool and responding to a warming world. It provides free air conditioning, pays to plant trees, and installs heat pumps in homes.

Jerome Ollison loved to listen to music and sing. He was born and raised in Portland where he attended Eliot Elementary and graduated from Jefferson High School. He worked at Swan Island Shipyard and involved himself in church activities like volunteering for the food bank. He was 68 when died of a heat-related illness on June 28, 2021.

Cooling Portland was the Portland Clean Energy Fund’s first community programs to distribute free air conditioning units after the heat dome. It is on track to have distributed 25,000 AC units to Portland residents by the end of this summer.

Another PCEF program aims to eventually install 900 heat pumps within city limits, and has so far reached 264 homes.

Gloria Contreras said it’s been life-changing.

Heat used to exasperate the 43-year-old’s health and her wallet. She would struggle to sleep during heat waves, waking up with a dry throat as her two sons struggled with nosebleeds caused by heat. During the day she avoided cooking and would find refuge in a retail store.

Even portable ACs were out of her budget — but she opened a credit card to pay for two units for each of the kids’ rooms. Even so, her Centennial neighborhood home was still hot during heat waves.

Now, she cools her home with a heat pump that would have cost $12,000 — obtained at no cost to her family.

“My kids’ nosebleeds stopped the first day they installed it,” she said in Spanish.

Contreras leaves the heat pump on all the time, at 76 degrees. Her monthly utility bills are $100 lower than what she used to pay for the portable AC units.

“We don’t struggle anymore,” she said. “We’re comfortable and at ease right here at home.”

The ‘Green Wall’

But the success of these programs has proven, at times, to be their own kryptonite — and federal support for climate response has evaporated under President Donald Trump, leaving states like Oregon trying to fill gaps left by rescinded funds.

Some of Oregon’s popular heat pump programs have run out of funding. State support has been limited in recent years, as the Legislature has struggled with a budget crunch.

That’s left the Portland Clean Energy Fund as Oregon’s most reliable source of home cooling assistance. But it only helps residents and organizations located within the city limits. Gloria Contreras lived inside the city’s boundaries, so she qualified for help.

But for anyone outside of the boundary, navigating bureaucracy to seek home-cooling help can be a matter of life or death.

Multnomah County’s Sustainability Director John Wasiutynski calls it the “Green Wall.”

“The city limit is that wall,” he said. On one side of the wall, abundant resources help city residents cool their homes. Outside city limits, it can be harder to get help.

Fred Fah died before the programs that created the Green Wall were created — but he would have lived outside, unable to access air conditioning from Portland’s climate fund.

Rockwood resident Dawna Burnett also lives outside the wall.

Burnett said she spent the 2021 heat dome in her bathtub trying to keep cool. She had no AC unit in her home. The heat was so severe inside, her granddaughter’s guinea pigs died from the heat.

The 64-year-old recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Burnett’s conditions are made worse during excessive heat. She walks around with an oxygen tank and regularly takes breaks to catch her breath.

“I’ve been through a lot. I’m a tough old bird,” she said. “I got to stay around for my grandbabies.”

When Burnett heard about public programs that could help Oregonians access AC units, she called a helpline for more information — but she hit a roadblock when she shared her address.

“They said, ‘Because you’re out of the jurisdiction we can’t cover you, blah, blah, blah.’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m going to die because of this heat wave, because I’m a block away?’”

Burnett was able to find a program that offered an air conditioning unit.

But not everyone is able to overcome the Green Wall.

It cuts right through the Rockwood neighborhood, which bridges east Portland and Gresham. Rockwood was identified as having one of the highest heat-related death tolls during the 2021 heat dome.

Not all the residents in this area qualify for PCEF resources, said Denise Lopez, climate action analyst with Gresham. If they are on the Portland side of the line, Portland’s climate fund can help. Across the line, it won’t.

And Rockwood residents need help staying cool more than people in tree-lined neighborhoods elsewhere in the region. Most sections of Rockwood are considered urban heat islands, Lopez said.

To help identify where more resources are needed, Multnomah County created the Heat Vulnerability Index. The Rockwood neighborhood ranked as particularly vulnerable.

“There’s so much need here and [Gresham] doesn’t have the resources to meet that need,” she said. “Looking to Portland has been the obvious go-to and we’ve had a lot of heartbreak from families that reach out because they have Portland in their [mailing] address and realizing they don’t qualify.”

Donald Edwin MacKay, nicknamed “Bad D,” loved car shows, magazines and his grandchildren. He worked as an airline mechanic. He was 83 when died of a heat-related illness on June 28, 2021.

With limited funds, Gresham — population 115,000 — has had to get creative on hot days. Lopez and her team have been creating a map of informal cooling spaces. They’ve also been thinking about how to support older residents.

“Creating programs, like a heat buddy ambassador, so that we’re tackling different problems at once, increasing community connectedness, which will help not just with heat, but all of our other climate events that we’ll have in the future,” she said.

Still the lack of funding leaves the community vulnerable as temperatures continue to climb.

What’s next?

Oregon has already experienced multiple warmer-than-average days this year. Temperatures topped 90 degrees even before summer officially started. As of now, Multnomah County is looking into four heat-related deaths.

“In the old days, you didn’t think that Oregon was a place where you needed cooling,” Marsh said.

Self-taught piano player and graphic artist James “Jimmy” McKinley Dutton was born and raised in Portland. He loved and participated in many sports and collected old baseball cards and miniature cars. He was 67 when died of a heat-related illness on July 6, 2021.

Five years after the 2021 heat dome, there’s no denying the state has changed.

And while some programs created after that record-breaking summer still exist, others were short-lived or exhausted all their funds.

Without more ways for the most vulnerable Oregonians to weather extreme heat, the state could see more preventable heat related deaths, Marsh said.

She said she is working on a “Cooling Package” for lawmakers to consider when they return to Salem in January. It could require new homes to include heat pumps, and support heat pump installations in existing rental housing. She also wants to find more funds for popular programs like the Rental Heat Pump program.

“That’s my highest priority for any kind of climate investment that we can make, because it’s a matter of life and safety for people,” she said.

Prioritizing the state’s most vulnerable populations, like people over 65 and those who have pre-existing health conditions, has helped many beat the heat.

For Steve Carr and other members of his veterans club, that could mean fewer lost friends when the next heat wave comes.

Fred Fah’s death is a painful reminder of how quickly things can change, said Carr, who often feels survivors’ guilt.

He said he’s thought a lot of what he could have done differently and if Fah would still be alive today.

“We miss him,” Carr said.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/29/oregon-heat-dome-fifth-anniversary/