He loved this perch, tucked in the oaks, looking down on the city and ocean. Gazing at all the activity below heightened the feeling of remove. "This is such a precious place," he said.
Batchelor headed up the hill to check on the house of his neighbors, Bob and Gail, and came across a firefighter, Nicholas Meigs, looking for smoldering spots.
"Thank you so much for saving my home," he said. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
Meigs, of the Stanislaus County Fire Department, had wandered up the bare hillsides looking for spots where the fire might be burning below the surface -- "skunking," in fire jargon -- in the layer of wood-leaf debris firefighters call "duff."
"If it stays hot like this, it'll just keep skunking around waiting for the wind to pick it up again," he said.
He and his crews were digging it up where they could and watching the clouds to see what the wind was up to.
While Batchelor got a lift back to town, Franklin trudged back up to the house on Ben Lomond Drive around 4 to see the same thing.
The mountain kept spouting smoke like a snoring dragon. A gust rattled the leaves and dust devils swirled on the next ridge.
"This is exactly how it started yesterday," he said.
But the air settled down again.
At least for now.
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joe.mozingo@latimes.com
