Hot weather can put your health at risk. Heat-related illness includes heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat fainting, heat rash and muscle cramps. Finding and spending time in a cool space can help protect against the effects of hot weather.
The City’s Heat Relief Network features cool spaces that are open during and beyond Heat Warnings and others open only during Heat Warnings. It includes pools, wading pools, splash pads, community centres and, during Heat Warnings, a select number of Emergency Cooling Centres (ECCs) for the public.
As the current pandemic situation continues to evolve, the City is adapting its approach to provide as much access to heat relief as possible and to reflect the advice and direction from Toronto Public Health, as well as the provincial and federal governments. Additional cool spaces will be added to the Network, as they become available.
The ECCs are designated sites that will only open during Heat Warnings issued by Environment & Climate Change Canada. Information about the location and hours of operations for the ECCs.
The ECCs are available to residents if they do not have access to a cool space and cannot keep cool in their home or outdoors.
Spending time in a cooler environment during extremely hot weather lowers the core body temperature and helps to protect against heat-related illness. If you do not have access to air conditioning, cool down by following these tips or visit an available cool space in the city.
The City’s Streets to Homes outreach team is doing wellness checks for clients who live outdoors. During a Heat Warning, two outreach teams active in the city (Streets to Homes and Fred Victor Keep Cool Project) will be doing wellness checks, advising clients of the open cool spaces and ECC locations and the TTC assistance to get them to a site, providing them with water and recommending, if they stay outdoors, to move to a shaded area.