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August 28, 2020

California Wildfires Impact Promo Pros

Promotional products professionals in Northern California, in particular, were dealing with massive fires.

By  Christopher Ruvo

UPDATE FRIDAY Aug. 28, 12:15 PM EDT
The Associated Press reported that “California wildfires were slowly being corralled Friday as cooler, humid weather and reinforcements aided firefighters and tens of thousands of people were allowed back home after days of death and destruction.” Even so, Cal Fire officials stated that even after the wildfires are contained, thousands of firefighters will have to remain on the firelines to extinguish smoldering timber and hot spots to prevent flareups – a process that could drag on for weeks.

The sky seemed to be snowing ash.

That’s how Andy Keller, CEO/founder of Chico, CA-based promo products supplier ChicoBag (asi/44811), described the fallout from wildfires that were raging in Northern California not far from his town.

fire alert

“There’s been ash all over the cars – ash all over everything. It’s very smoky,” Keller continued. “Even during the daytime, there’s been an odd, overcast gloomy haze. The sun isn’t quite shining; it’s orange. The moon is orange. It’s been spooky, but it did get better today.”

Keller and ChicoBag are among the professionals in the promo industry contending with the safety threat and challenges posed by the latest outbreak of wildfires to strike California.

Fortunately, the ChicoBag team has so far been safe, operations are continuing, and no staffers have had to evacuate their homes. Still, the fires are reminiscent of the historically destructive Camp Fire of 2018, which wreaked havoc in Northern California, including wiping out three ChicoBag employees’ homes.

“It brings a lot of that back,” said Keller. “There’s a lot of emotions.”

And sadly, ChicoBag – and other promo firms in California – aren’t out of the woods yet.

Over the last week, approximately 650 wildfires have flared across the Golden State. Lightning strikes – which number more than 13,000 since mid-August  – are believed to have ignited many of the blazes.

Press reports indicate there are more than 14,000 firefighters, 2,400 engines and 95 aircraft trying to beat back the flames. As of the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 24, seven people had died and more than 250,000 people were under evacuation orders and warnings in California. Wildfires statewide had burned more than 1.2 million acres, or 1,875 square miles, as of Monday, Aug. 24.

Northern California has been especially hard hit, with firefighters battling three massive fires or fire complexes – a term used to describe various blazes amalgamating into large infernos. These include the LNU Lightning Complex Fire, already the second largest wildfire in California history, affecting locales that include the wine country counties of Napa and Sonoma, while the SCU Lightning Complex Fire was impacting the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Bay Area, with its heavy population and concentration of technology companies, remained under an extreme fire danger warning as of the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 24. Higher humidity levels were expected to help slow the flames’ spread and give firefighters a bit of a leg up in getting more of the fires under greater control.

“The impact we’re seeing from the wildfires here is pretty bad,” said Jason Lucash, senior vice president of marketing and innovation at Top 40 supplier HPG (asi/61966). Lucash lives in the San Francisco area. “The biggest problems for us here in the East Bay have been the smoke and power outages. Last weekend [Aug.15 to16], we were without power for 17 hours, and it was 104 degrees outside. We had to throw away all our food and go over to my parents’ house to try and stay cool. Then starting [Aug. 19] the smoke got really bad. My car was covered in ash. We’ve had three filtration units going in the house because some of the smoke smell is coming through the exhaust fans.”

Lucash gave the above account late in the day on Aug. 20. Speaking to Counselor again on Aug. 24, he reported that the situation had gotten worse.

“The air quality here is so bad,” said Lucash. “We’ve all been trapped in our houses due to the smoke and there’s three big fires all within the area that are causing smoke to come and sit in the valley we live in below the fog layer.”

Lucash, who founded HPG brand Origaudio (asi/75254), noted that Origaudio’s operations haven’t been impacted. Operations relocated from Northern California to Utah in March. Office workers have been working from home since the onset of societal lockdowns tied to COVID-19 began in late winter, he noted.

To the north in Sonoma County, some promo pros were watching the fires carefully. Eddie Brascia, president of Sonoma Design Apparel & Promotions (asi/329869), based in Sonoma’s county seat of Santa Rosa, reported that so far there’d been no evacuation orders and that business was proceeding as usual. Still, having experienced the effect of other wildfires in recent years, he was leery of what potentially lay ahead.

“As of right now, no news is good news,” he said, “but things can change rapidly.”

Already 2020 has taught promo pros that lesson.

The coronavirus has torpedoed business for many advertising specialty firms this year. In the second quarter, for example, distributors’ sales experienced an unprecedented historic decline of 44.4%, a result of event cancellations and economic activity virtually halting amid societal shutdown measures.

San Francisco-area distributor Harry Ein, owner of Perfection Promo, said the wildfire issues just exacerbate problems already in play from COVID-19.

“Business-wise, things were already pretty bad, but this is a double-whammy,” said Ein, noting that coronavirus caused one of his major clients to close, while one of his main markets – pro sports giveaways – has essentially gone silent given the dearth of spectators at games.

Wildfires appear to have caused a shipping delay on a recent order, doubling the time for delivery, Ein noted. “It’s already been a struggle for people on a business and personal level, and the fires make it worse.”

Other Californian promo pros could relate. Serious, large-scale wildfires that char hundreds of thousands of acres, destroy homes and businesses, and claim lives have become an annual occurrence in California in recent years. Their re-emergence in 2020 just adds to the troubles caused by COVID, they said.

“It is a sad thing that we now have a wildfire season here in California, and it is late summer and the fall,” said Craig Nadel, president of Los Angeles-based Top 40 distributor Jack Nadel International (asi/279600). “In truth, though, COVID, the recession, and the overall business climate is the big story. The fires are like a flea on an elephant in terms of business. It’s been a challenging year.”