Woman dies while hiking in California mountains during extreme heatwave

Areas of state saw hottest day on record over weekend

(AP)

A woman has died while hiking during an extreme heatwave in California at temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius), according to reports.

The 41-year-old, whose name has not been released, was hiking with a friend in the Santa Monica Mountains on Saturday when she became ill, CNN reported.

She was at Tapia Park in Malibu Creek State Park when she died, Lieutenant Greg Evans of the Malibu-Lost Hills Sheriff's Station told KABC.

The two were heading back to their car when the woman collapsed and her friend to called paramedics, CNN reported.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department Paramedics performed CPR on the woman for about 20 or 30 minutes when they arrived on the scene, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Morgan Arteaga told CNN.

However, they failed to revive her and she was pronounced dead at around 2pm, Mr Arteaga told the broadcaster.

A coroner is yet to provide an official cause of death, but Mr Arteaga said the death was likely heat-related and connected to “natural causes of some kind”.

Malibu Search Rescue continually urged residents not to hike over the weekend on Twitter, saying that the heat “is no joke”.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in the area around the time of the woman's death registered at more than 110 degrees.

The intense heatwave, which covered much of the western US, forced widespread blackouts for the first time in a decade and drove wildfires that threatened thousands of homes.

“The dangerous heatwave across much of the Desert Southwest and California will linger today with cooler temperatures expected on Tuesday,” the National Weather Service said on Monday.

More than 80 million people were placed under heat alerts on Friday, extending from the central part of the US through the entire West Coast.  

The climate crisis is driving an increase in extreme temperatures in the state and across the US, according to experts.

“At this point, it’s certainly clear climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency everywhere,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research told Bloomberg.

“Even in very different kinds of geographies and climates.”

Conditions caused by the crisis are accelerating the risk of heatwaves and wildfires, as dry vegetation and fierce winds prime conditions for deadly fires.

More than 600 people are killed by extreme heat every year across the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.