‘Fire season’ just beginning

One credit union CEO whose headquarters narrowly escaped California wildfires in October of 2017 and which is now being threatened by a new blaze is facing the sobering fact that possibly the worst is still to come.

Brett Martinez, CEO of the $4.3-billion Redwood CU here, acknowledged that it is not comforting knowing the 2018 California “fire season” lies ahead, even has it has learned some difficult lessons when it comes to fires.

“It sounds crazy to say that we are approaching the beginning of the fire season,” said Martinez. “I know they say the fire season is now 12 months of the year here. But there still is the time of the year when fires are more likely to occur. When we got hit bad last year by fires it was the first week October, and that is just ahead. So this has been a very bad stretch for fires in California and it’s still very early in the fire season.”

As John Cassidy, CEO at the $973-million Sierra Central CU in Yuba City, Calif., told CUToday.info in a previous report, bracing for more frequent and larger fires has become the new normal in California. Martinez agreed.

 

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