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11 people have been hospitalised due to extreme heat as thousands waited to enter a campaign rally with former President Donald Trump in Arizona.
As Trump took the stage at a megachurch in Phoenix, the temperature was 111F (44C).
It was his first rally since his criminal conviction in a New York hush-money case, which found him guilty of falsifying business records in relation to a payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
Trump used the campaign event to repeat accusations that the case against him was politically motivated and called for the conviction to be overturned. The ex-president is expected to appeal against all 34 charges in the trial.
Fans started lining up early outside the massive Phoenix Dream City Church to see him speak, and strict security measures meant it took time for everyone to get in. As supporters waited outside the campaign rally several people were being treated for heat-related issues and two were taken to hospital.
Trump started a small campaign tour with a stop in Phoenix on Thursday, exactly a week after he was found guilty in New York. The former president spoke for about 90 minutes before departing for a fundraiser in San Francisco.
As well as railing against his conviction, he said he would reverse President Joe Biden's new executive order aimed at curbing migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border.
The presidential candidate promised to "terminate every single open-borders policy of the Biden administration".
Trump is next expected to hold a campaign event in Las Vegas on Sunday. Las Vegas is also seeing record temperatures. The forecast high of 112F (44C) in Las Vegas on Thursday would be the city's earliest observed 112F day on record.
The intense heat has placed more than 30 million people across the south-west region under alerts for dangerously hot temperatures, with officials asking residents to take precautions.
Heat-related illness and even death are becoming more common in Phoenix and the American south-west.
The world hit 12 straight months of record-high temperatures, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said earlier this week.
Last month was the hottest recorded May in history.
Lewis Musonye
