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California Today

California Today: Wildfires, Earlier Than Ever

Firefighters lit backfires in Lake Isabella, Calif., last week.Credit...Casey Christie/The Bakersfield Californian, via Associated Press

Good morning,

We’re trying something new this week: California Today, a morning update for our California readers. Tell us what you’d like to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com

California is no longer facing an acute drought.

But we’re waking this morning to a vivid reminder of another environmental threat.

Major wildfires, from the Mexican border to Oregon, burned through the weekend.

And it’s only the start of summer.

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Homes burned in South Lake, Calif.Credit...Stuart Palley/European Pressphoto Agency

The largest fire, in Kern County near Bakersfield, spread quickly, destroying at least 250 structures and killing at least two people.

Thousands have been left without electricity.

Fire officials struggled to remember another fire that was so destructive so early in the year.

Once again, drones also disrupted their efforts.

Though (slightly) cooler than last week, temperatures in Bakersfield will reach 105 degrees today.

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People gathered outside an evacuation center in Kernville, Calif., over the weekend.Credit...Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The high is also 105 in Sacramento, and 94 in the northeast corner of the state.

The coast is downright balmy by comparison: 87 degrees in Los Angeles (where extreme heat led to power outages last week) and 82 in Oakland.

Still, no rain in the forecast.

It’s a hazard for firefighters, causing drier brush and larger blazes.

But all that rain from the winter will help, right?

Actually, no.

The rain led to an explosion of tall grass. The grass died off in the heat of the past couple of months, and is now fueling fires.

Meanwhile, five years of drought, heat and bark beetles have left roughly 66 million dead trees in the Sierra Nevada, ready to ignite.

So this might be a good time to make sure there’s a defensible space between your home and brush that might burn. Some advice.

A white nationalist group’s rally at the Capitol in Sacramento turned into a melee on Sunday, leaving at least 10 people hurt, two of them with serious stab wounds.

The Traditionalist Worker Party had a permit for the rally. But hundreds of counterprotesters, described by an official as “anarchist types,” swarmed the grounds.

Sacramento’s ABC10 has footage. The Sacramento Bee spoke to the counterprotesters.

• On Thursday, California is set to certify ballot measures for the Nov. 8 election. The Los Angeles Times says it could be the longest list of statewide propositions in 16 years.

• It’s summer festival season, and with it comes a range of unusual competitions. The Alameda County Fair, open until next Monday, has soap carving and national anthem contests.

• Or, the Roman Spartan Festival, in Bakersfield on Saturday, offers a spear-throwing contest. Costumes evoking antiquity are encouraged. Metal swords are not.

• The Giants and A’s are playing a Bay Bridge series this week. It starts in San Francisco tonight and Tuesday night, then moves back across the bay to Oakland for games Wednesday and Thursday nights.

626 Night Market, the country’s largest Asian-themed night market, returns to Los Angeles County this weekend. You’re not likely to find treats like the squid on a stick anywhere else.

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A Chinese Crested dog named Rascal Deux during the World’s Ugliest Dog contest.Credit...Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• A sordid police scandal, involving a teenage prostitute and racist text messages, has seriously complicated efforts to make Oakland a safer city.

• The BET Awards, held in Los Angeles on Sunday, were filled with Prince tributes. The highlight, though, may have been remarks by the actor Jesse Williams, whose speech about racial injustice brought the audience to its feet.

• California, among the first states to embrace nuclear energy, may close its last nuclear plant. Meanwhile, take a look at Elon Musk’s clean energy vision: the logic of the Tesla-SolarCity merger.

• “What is home, what is safety, what is security?” A “Home Land Security” art show is being held at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

• The world’s ugliest dog contest was held in Petaluma. Yes, we have photos.

• Palm Springs, known more for its party scene than its food, now has a restaurant that focuses on alfresco.

• An interview with the comedian Ali Wong, a San Francisco native. “Men aren’t as honest about their feelings of desperation or things sagging on their body.”

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George Lucas at the San Francisco site where he wanted to build a museum in 2013.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

• Thousands gathered for San Francisco’s gay pride parade on Sunday. The celebration was tempered this year by reminders of the massacre in Orlando, Fla. [San Jose Mercury News]

• Law enforcement officers in California have lost nearly 1,000 guns — handguns, sniper rifles, even grenade launchers — over the last six years. They have no idea where most of them have ended up. [San Jose Mercury News]

• Addiction, secrecy and Bible verses: The story of In-N-Out Burger’s first family. [KCET]

• San Francisco spends $241 million a year on homeless programs. Yet homelessness in the city still looks much the way it did 20 years ago. [San Francisco Chronicle]

• No, the drought is not over. But some water agencies are acting as if it is. [Desert Sun]

• George Lucas is still searching for a home for his Museum of Narrative Arts. He is abandoning plans to build it in Chicago, and looking again to San Francisco. Los Angeles is also trying to woo him. [Los Angeles Times]

S.F. vs. L.A.

Giants vs. Dodgers

“Hella” vs. absolutely anything except “hella”

Now … BART vs. Metro?

California’s North-South rivalry has taken a strange turn in recent days.

On Friday afternoon, BART, the San Francisco Bay Area’s rail system, challenged Metro, its Los Angeles counterpart, to, well, it’s hard to explain.

After a few more taunts, Metro joined in, residents of both cities followed and #transithaiku was soon trending on Twitter.

_______

(What you don’t do, if you land at Los Angeles International Airport, is get on a train. There isn’t one.)

Other cities, including Portland, Ore., entered the fray.

Despite a few low blows …

… the two agencies called a truce after a few hours.

Of course, jibes from riders have not let up.

We’re trying out California Today all week. It stays live from 6 a.m. Pacific time until late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Tell us at CAtoday@nytimes.com, or reach us via Twitter using #CAToday.

Follow the California Today columnist, Ian Lovett, on Twitter.

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