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The children were already soaked when the parents started stepping into the spray, too. The Marblehead Fire Department had raised an aerial ladder outside the Marblehead Community Center on Thursday afternoon and turned its nozzle toward the sky, letting the water come down over a lot full of families for the department's Beat the Heat event.
Children in swimsuits and soaked rash guards ran back and forth through the mist. Parents held up phones. A woman in a floral sundress lifted hers for a selfie as the water fell around her. The spray is usually a children's game. Thursday's heat pulled the grown-ups in with them.
The Boston area reached 100 degrees Thursday, breaking the July 2 record of 98 set in 1963, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters had placed the region under an extreme heat watch from 10 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday evening, and by Thursday the heat index was climbing toward 115 degrees.
The day capped one of the hottest stretches the region had felt in years. June had gone into the books as one of the five warmest on record in Boston, and the last time the city hit 100 degrees was June 24, 2025. Even Thursday's reading fell short of the 104 degrees Boston recorded in 1911, still the hottest in city history.
The same heat that packed the community center lot was overloading the wires above it. About 4 p.m., a section of primary cable feeding the Lafayette and Humphrey circuits overheated under the load, and roughly 1,500 feet of three-phase overhead spacer cable failed, according to the Marblehead Municipal Light Department. About 1,000 customers lost power.
Jonathan Blair, general manager of the light department, said the line had been pulling more current than it could shed on a day that hot. "Not solely due to heat, but it was a contributing factor," Blair said.
Outside the Marblehead Community Center, the ladder kept sweeping back and forth over the lot, and an American flag hung at the edge of the crowd. The children lined up for another pass. This time, so did their parents.
Check out our photographer Katie Ring's photos.
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