Wildfires Compound Woes in Crisis Year By Lynette Bertrand, Communications Manager, CACM
O
n August 27, Rena MacDonell, CCAM, was working from a hotel room. With both her office and home on fire evacuation notices, MacDonell had no choice but to set up office remotely there.
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somewhere else. COVID was a great precursor to make us be prepared for other things.”
MacDonell, a regional manager for The John Stewart Company in Scotts Valley who manages multiple properties of both HOA and apartments, said she had been evacuated from her office for a week. Luckily, most of the 21 people in the office were set up to work remotely already thanks to COVID.
While California is no stranger to wildfires, this year has been particularly bad. The wildfire season started earlier than usual and has been deemed one of the most dangerous and overwhelming fire seasons in history with more than 3 million acres blackened by midSeptember due to high temperatures, strong winds, dry forests and lightning storms. On August 15, lightning strikes started hundreds of fires across Northern California.
“COVID was a great precursor to this,” she said. “It made us become better equipped to be mobile. We can pick up in a minute’s notice and be
The fire evacuation order in MacDonell’s area was lifted just moments before our phone interview. None of the communities she
Vision Fall 2020 | cacm.org
