Sizzler Just Ordinary Day in Borrego : Heat wave: Many schools in county close, but in the desert town, where it was 111 degrees, it was nothing to complain about.

In Borrego Springs, where the temperature soared to the hottest in the county at 111 degrees Wednesday, schoolchildren attended the normal day of classes, and firefighters went through their regular practice wearing full gear.

If you want to talk about heat waves, local folks said, come back on a really hot day, like the time a couple of years ago that it reached 122.

The red line on the thermometer outside on the wall of Ruth’s First Lady of Beauty reached 104 degrees. That’s because the thermometer was in the shade.

Owner Ruth Gibbs, 60, sat comfortably in an operator’s chair watching a soap opera and waiting for customers in the shop, where she had the thermostat set at a relatively cool 80 degrees.

“The media tends to give the heat in Borrego a bad name,” Gibbs said.

Although the heat created no flap in the desert, San Diego and environs sizzled during yet another day of sweltering heat, and East County school officials decided to send several thousand students home early Wednesday.

About 12,000 students from six schools in the Grossmont Union High School District went home early Wednesday and plan to go home early today as scorching temperatures heated non-air conditioned classrooms to nearly 100 degrees.

“The heat is very stifling,” said Carl Wong, the district’s assistant superintendent whose walk through scorching classrooms at Mt. Miguel High persuaded him to curtail the school day. “It seemed very appropriate to have the students on a short day.”

In the Grossmont Union High School District as well as other inland districts, officials called for a shortened school day of four hours, finishing up classes close to noon in schools without air conditioning.

In the Cajon Valley Union School District, six schools plan to close early today and Friday to beat the heat. Parents of the roughly 4,000 students at the junior high school and five elementary schools were notified Wednesday that their children will be sent home early.

In San Diego, the temperature climbed to 85, and even the coast heated up: Chula Vista, 86; Coronado, 91; Delmar, 81; Miramar, 97. In inland areas, the mercury soared: Alpine, El Cajon, and Escondido, 98; Fallbrook, 102; Poway, 99; and Ramona, 98.

National Weather Service meteorologists say the sunshine and heat--caused by a high pressure area sitting over the coast--will continue, lessening only by a couple of degrees today and Friday. And it looks as if the hottest day of the week will have been Tuesday, when temperatures reached 103 in Poway and 100 in Miramar.

“It’s not unusual to have hot weather at this time of the year, but still, this is quite hot,” meteorologist Dan Atkin said.

As San Diegans attempted to cool off, SDG&E; officials reported that more power was used Wednesday than during any other day of the year. During the peak at 3:30 p.m., residents and businesses used 3,025 megawatts of power, company spokesman Tom Murnane said. One megawatt is the amount of energy usually required to serve 1,000 homes.

In anticipation of the continuing heat, SDG&E; officials ask that consumers try to avoid using major appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines during the afternoon today and for the duration of the heat wave.

San Diego County Water Authority spokesman Mark Stadler said San Diegans were still tightening their taps and not dousing themselves as they attempted to stay cool this week.

“Water use has been affected only a little bit,” Stadler said. “People are continuing to be water wise, and we appreciate that.”

In Borrego Springs, a town of 3,000 perched at the perimeter of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in northeastern San Diego County, it was just another day even if the 111-degree temperature was just 2 degrees short of the national high of 113 in Palm Springs.

“As long as you don’t go out and start digging holes, you’re OK. No place is utopia,” Gibbs said.

Few people walked the streets, but a steady stream of customers went to Circle Fence Food and Spirits, where owner Dan Bobren offered a swamp-cooled interior and a variety of drinks for sale.

“It’s not hot now,” Bobren said. “Two years ago it was 122. Any time it’s under 110, you don’t feel it if it’s dry like today.”

“We’re used to 100-degree temperatures,” agreed manager Warren Young of the Silk Purse gift shop, which sported an “I Borrego Springs” bumper sticker on the front door.

His simple advice: “If it’s too hot to go outside, you don’t go outside.”

At Borrego Valley Foods, one of the two markets in town, the designer water, such as Evian and Perrier was going fast. Regular water and soda were a distant second and third.

At 2:30 p.m., when the sun seemed at its searing brightest, the Borrego Springs Fire Department returned to the station from practice--conducted in full turnout pants and jackets, helmets, hoods and breathing apparatus--all of it adding 70 pounds to their ladder-climbing exercises.

“We still have to practice,” Chief Al Fehlberg said. “We still have to wear the same stuff, summer or winter.”

About 80% of the calls the station gets are from senior citizens suffering from heat fatigue, Fehlberg said. Ironically, in the cooler parts of the year, there are more heat victims--because that’s when the tourists are around.

“The only heat fatality we’ve had was a teacher visiting from New York, a high school football coach, who went out camping without adequate water,” he said. “The people here now are the natives, they know how to take care of themselves.”