Toward the end of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most torrid spell of heat on record.

It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters.

And this unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere been free from humidity.
The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thin smoke from distant forest fires.

The sun rose, a great, pale-red ball, hot at sunrise, and it soared blazing-white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a cloudless, coppery sky, at last to set sullen and crimson over the ranges.
Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry in this area, resembled a city of furnaces.

Business was slack.