Summer, the Great Bully, has shoved its way into North Texas again, with the predictable and prickly results: Temperatures are in three digits, lawns are parched and officials are taking steps to minimize the dangers that a hot, dry summer inevitably brings.

The Denton County Commissioners Court passed a ban on outdoor burning Tuesday and also declared a countywide “disaster,” a bit of procedural hocus-pocus that allows the county fire marshal’s office the authority to move firefighting crews and equipment around in case of a large grassfire.

We are no strangers to brutal summers here in North Texas, but that doesn’t make them any easier to take. The annual Browning of the Lawn ritual is a depressing one for the Denton County homeowner, but it is one that he or she experiences nearly every summer, as good citizenship and the need to conserve water trumps the desire for a lush, green lawn. We dutifully disconnect the hose and lawn sprinkler from the outside spigot and watch as our carefully tended crop turns yellow, then brown, and starts to crackle beneath our feet as we cross the yard to our mailbox in the 99-degree dusk. When we leave our air-conditioned office for lunch at midday, the heat slowly settles down around our faces like a fat duck. Springtime resolutions to put the thermostat on 80 degrees and leave it there no matter what wither and die in mid-July, and the resulting power usage makes paupers of us all and taxes our utility company to the extent that brownouts become routine. We become used to being greeted by a phalanx of blinking digital clocks upon coming home from work in the evening.

And these are just the inconveniences. The real dangers come from fire and drought, which threaten property, lives and livelihood. The commissioners were addressing those dangers Tuesday when they instituted the outdoor burning ban and voted to give county emergency management coordinator Jody Gonzalez emergency powers.

Those measures can help, but only if we help, too. Smokers have to use their car ash trays, and all motorists have to make sure their vehicles’ exhaust systems are in good repair to lessen the possibility of sparks that could start fires. Fireworks, never the smartest pastime in a perennially dry part of the country, must be eschewed completely in this dry and dangerous time.

There will always be a few knuckleheads and scofflaws who will ignore these and other pleas for safety and good sense, but for the most part Denton County people know the dangers of a long, hot summer and are more than willing to do their part in making it as safe as possible.

But we are not above wishing for a little divine help — watching the skies for the slightest sign of a cooling, soaking rain. We even get our hopes up, though guiltily, at the news that a hurricane is headed for the Texas coast, and we envision the heavy rains that will visit our parched North Texas lawns — minus the destructive winds and flooding that will inflict pain upon our Texas brothers and sisters in Brownsville and Galveston. We feel bad about thinking like that, but we can’t help it, and the news that Hurricane Dolly will probably not bring any rain our way feels like retribution for our selfish daydreams.

Heat, danger and guilt: Those are what a Texas summer brings.