Sunlit playground slides can reach 200 degrees. Here’s why — and how to keep kids safe
The coming week is going to be hot, and playground equipment in sunlight may be scorching.
“Just like you would a bottle, you’re testing (playground equipment) with the back of your hand” before letting your kid on it, said Corey Pence, risk and safety manager for the city of Boise.
In Utah, on an over 100-degree day, KSL journalist Debbie Dujanovic reported measuring playground slides in sunlight at around 180 degrees. One plastic slide was almost 200 degrees.
At just 155 degrees Fahrenheit, it takes only 1 second to get a third-degree burn from water, according to a press release from the American Burn Association.
Burns from plastic slides are similarly quick. Metal slides can injure someone even faster, since heat transfers through it more swiftly.
Burns may be worse for young children, who have thinner skin than most adults. They get deeper burns at the same temperature and exposure time, American Burn Association wrote.
The impact of burns is also greater, since even a small injury covers a much larger share of a child’s body.
If a kid is 2 or younger, Pence said, “they don’t have the cognitive ability to understand what’s happening. They may not have the reaction to be able to move off of a hot surface.”
Even on cooler days, playground equipment can get dangerously hot. In one case cited by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a child got a second-degree burn from a plastic slide on a 74-degree day.
St. Luke’s Dr. Martha Taylor said that, while she hasn’t seen any yet this year, St. Luke’s “absolutely” has seen burns on children from playground equipment.
Why do slides get hot?
Sunlight is composed of energy with different wavelengths. Only a small sliver of this energy is visible to humans and looks like a rainbow when passed through a prism.
A blue slide looks blue because it reflects blue wavelengths and absorbs other visible light. Black slides absorb all visible light, while white slides reflect it all.
“A lot of people do recognize that lighter colors attract less heat, and there is a lot of truth to that, but it’s not as much as they think it is,” said Nick Robles, operations manager at Intermountain Playground Co. Even in direct sunlight, he explained, a yellow slide will only be 4 to 10 degrees different than a dark green one.
Toby Norton, resource planning manager for Boise Parks and Recreation, tested the temperatures of different-colored slides in sunlight and came to a similar conclusion.
“There wasn’t a wide variation depending on color, so it’s not like blue is cooler than green or yellow. They were all roughly the same,” he said.
The sun also emits energy in wavelengths outside of what’s visible to people. That’s why differently colored slides may still get similarly hot.
“There’s a whole spectrum of energy that is kind of bombarding the planet at all times, and the materials in the playground will absorb that energy,” said Mike Hurley, a material science professor at Boise State University.
Paul Simmonds, a physics professor at Boise State, explained, “A slide in the sun can get significantly hotter than the air because it’s absorbing that heat directly from the sun.”
When playgrounds are designed, Norton said, the city of Boise tries to choose areas with natural shade and supplement with structures that provide shade. Even so, “it’s rather difficult, because shade moves around as you go throughout the day,” he said.
Staying safe
To protect from the sun, along with the hot equipment, Pence encouraged guardians to dress kids in pants and make sure they’re hydrated.
In terms of heat exhaustion, Taylor said, “with little kids, you want to err on the side of caution. Because, they may look OK, but they may not be OK very quickly thereafter.”
Taylor suggested going to the playground in the morning or evening, when “you don’t have as much direct heat and direct sunlight.”
“Please go with an adult who can test that equipment,” she added.
This story was originally published June 26, 2021 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Sunlit playground slides can reach 200 degrees. Here’s why — and how to keep kids safe."
