Even when temperatures crest into the triple digits, Ardi Entezam is outside working. His job demands it.
He’s the founder and owner of Ardi’s Eats and Sweets, a food truck that sells fancy burgers and fries at private functions or farmers markets, no matter how hot it gets outside.
“It’s survival, and you’re working, and you gotta make money,” he says. “Sometimes it’s not about ‘today I don’t feel like it, it’s too hot.’ Sometimes you gotta go.’”
Whatever the thermometer reading outside, it’s easily 10 degrees hotter in his trailer because of the giant grill radiating 380 degrees of heat into the cramped space.
With the cooktop fired up, even the air conditioning doesn’t help. “The best is to get the windows open, the back door open – and I have a screen – and then just let air flow,” Entezam says.
He keeps a water bottle handy and relies on the “strong threshold for pain” he says he’s built up after living in Southern California for decades.
“This is part of the food truck game,” he says.
Food truck operator Ardi Entezam says air conditioning doesn’t really make his trailer cooler, so he relies on a water bottle and a cross breeze to stay cool. Photo by Caleigh Wells.
As climate change makes heat waves longer, more frequent, and more intense, bearing the weather won’t be just a test of will and grit. The heat can be dangerous.
“If you're working outside, you're likely to be sweating more, which means releasing more energy. Your body's working a little bit harder, and so your body needs more hydration and more time to be able to cool off,” says Dr. Kimberly Petrick with Kaiser Permanente Santa Monica.
She says outdoor workers are at an increased risk of coming into the emergency room with heat-related concerns like high heart rate, fast breathing, confusion, or loss of consciousness. Those tend to show up after the initial symptoms like dizziness, cramping, headache, and fatigue.
If a heat stroke sufferer doesn’t get medical attention, the results can be fatal.
The number of heat-related deaths is going up every year. It increased from 1,500 nationwide in 2021 to 2,300 last year. Here in California, because of the agriculture industry, there have been protections for outdoor workers since 2006. Then this summer, California adopted more rules for people working in hot conditions inside.
“We face the painful reality that workers will lose their lives to heat. And in years to come, the hazards for workers will only get worse,” said Renee Guerrero Deleon of SoCal Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health at a state agency meeting about the new indoor worker rule.
Now employers are compelled to allow more breaks on hot days, access to cooler temperatures, and personal equipment like fans.
Entezam gets the importance of those precautions – though he doesn’t always take them himself. But he says he makes sure his employees do: “I let them go outside, take a little breather, we order iced frappuccinos for them. So you do whatever you have to do, right?”