Desert heat, high-elevation sun, and a soil fungus kicked up by dust.
Nevada is hot, dry and sunny, and much of it sits at high elevation. Southern Nevada's summers bring dangerous heat, the sun is strong year-round, and the fungus behind valley fever lives in the soil around Las Vegas. Parts of the state also have high predicted radon.
Southern Nevada summers are long and intense, and warm nights give your body little chance to recover. Dry air hides how much you sweat. Heat exhaustion can turn into heat stroke, a medical emergency, and children and pets left in parked cars are at special risk.
Most of Nevada sits well above sea level, and UV intensity rises about 6 percent for every kilometer of elevation. Clear desert skies add to it. That raises your risk of sunburn, skin damage and skin cancer over a lifetime, and of eye damage from glare.
Valley fever is a lung infection from breathing spores of a fungus that lives in soil in parts of the Southwest. Southern Nevada's health district says the spores are present throughout the area's soil and that cases in Clark County nearly quadrupled from 2014 to 2024. Construction, digging and dust storms stir up spores, and cases peak in autumn.
Radon is an invisible, odorless radioactive gas that seeps from soil into homes and is the leading cause of lung cancer in people who don't smoke. EPA's map puts several Nevada counties, including Carson City and Douglas County, in Zone 1, its highest-risk category. Testing is the only way to know your home's level.
Call 911 for heat stroke signs: confusion, fainting, a very high body temperature, or hot skin, whether dry or still sweating. See a doctor for a cough, fever or chest pain that lasts more than a week or two, especially after dust exposure, and mention valley fever. Have any new or changing mole checked.