Current modelling suggests the heat will linger in the region, extending the area of potential 50-degree condition to the Pilbara by Friday.

"The longer the air sits over the land, the more it heats up," Mr Hicks said. "It just sits there and just bakes ... Those poor buggers living out there tend to swelter for quite a few days in a row."

Margaret Rowe, a manager with the Upper Gascoyne Shire Council based some 160 km inland from Carnarvon, said the locals have ways to cope with furnace-like scorchers.

People "sit in air-conditioning", Ms Rowe said. "There's not much else you can do. It's just too hot to go outside."

Australia has recorded just three days of 50-degree heat since instruments were standardised nationally with the bureau's formation in 1910. The most recent was on February 20, 1998, when the mercury hit 50.5 degrees in the Pilbara town of Mardie.