Good morning.

(Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today by email.)

On Tuesday, amid the heat wave scorching the Bay Area, my colleague, Thomas Fuller, visited the man who’s believed to have caused the biggest fire in the state’s modern history. How? He spotted an underground wasp nest and tried to plug it with a metal stake, which sparked.

Almost a year after the Ranch Fire burned 410,203 acres of wildland, his dispatch from the rural lands where the blaze started serves as a reminder of just how close many Californians live to the edge. Here’s more about the story from Thomas:

The intense dry heat in many parts of California this week is bringing fire anxiety, especially for those who live near open spaces.

John Syfert Jr., an electrician who lives along Route 20 in Mendocino County, might have reason to be nervous. Last July, his wife called him at work to say the other side of the highway was engulfed in flames.

“It’s scary when the whole world is on fire,” Mr. Syfert told me Tuesday on the edge of his driveway.