Accounting firms in Southern California are trying to cope with the wildfires raging across the region, in many cases shutting down or relocating.
At Blum and Clark Accountancy Group in San Diego, only the receptionist was available to talk Wednesday. She said no one else was in the office. Rowling Dold & Associates, in San Diego, was closed on Monday and in the process of moving offices on Wednesday. Lavine, Lofgren, Morris & Engelberg in La Jolla was having problems with its phone system. A receptionist said that because of the fires the firm was getting only incoming phone calls but could not call out.
Chuck Peters, a partner with Streit & Peters CPAs in Redlands, felt mildly encouraged Wednesday about the firm's office in hard-hit Lake Arrowhead. "So far it looks like we're in pretty good shape," he said. "There's one fire to the west of us and the bigger fire to the east of us, but so far, from what I can tell from the Internet, it's moving away from us."
Peters lives in Lake Arrowhead. The six staff members from that office have all evacuated and relocated. "We grabbed as many files as we could and our file server computer, and set that up in our Redlands office," said Peters. He thinks it will be at least a week before they can get back into the Lake Arrowhead offices. Meanwhile, he is trying to help clients who have also needed to evacuate the area by keeping their payroll systems going and handling bill payments.
