Photos.com image. Mar 12, 2012; 9:21 AM ET
Perth's summer of 2011-2012 has landed in the record books, following a historical first eighth heat wave.
The heat wave was an apparent factor in a bushfire described as "fierce" and "threatening lives and homes," the Australian website said on Monday.
The record-breaking hot blast began Friday, culminating in Sunday's high of 41.4 degrees C (107 F). Monday's high of 40.6 C (105 C) extended March's second major heat wave to a fourth day, the Australian indicated.
A heat wave is defined by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) as three-straight days of 35 degrees C (95 F).
Only one other month of March, that of 1988, saw more than one heat wave beset western Australia's biggest city, according to the BoM.
The summer has been consistently hot, average temperature since Dec. 1 being 3.3 degrees C (6.0 F) above normal at the Perth Airport, the AccuWeather.com database showed.
The abnormal heat was nearly as severe as that of the preceding summer.
Perth's geographical location allows its summers to be moderated by the nearby Indian Ocean most of the time.
Still, blistering heat off deserts to the north and east normally wafts in at least a few times each summer.
But the present summer season has had persistent warmth together with its repeated hot outbreaks.
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