When a heat dome enveloped the Pacific Northwest in 2021, baby hawks, unable to fly, threw themselves out of their nests, attempting to reach the cooler forest floor. Millions of shellfish dried up and died. And conservationists had to scoop up endangered young salmon out of rivers and into indoor tanks to keep them cool.

Maine hasn't faced a heat dome on that scale. But given the changing climate, Maine CDC Environmental Epidemiologist Rebecca Lincoln is worried it's only a matter of time.

"This absolutely could happen here. It is Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon. The climates are really similar. The populations are really similar. The sort of mix of urban and rural is similar," she says.

As human-caused climate change warms the planet, summers are getting hotter. The number of da

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