Yeah, I watched streams yesterday, there were very small number of protesters and already much more police than them.
Sending national guard is just in hope to escalate it, as Newsom said.
Edit: also the fires started were mostly by the smoke bombs they were throwing (those things are really hot).
Well technically not just water they also contain some chemicals from the exhaust. Ironically those same people don't mind exhausts from cars or coal power plants.