Watch Duty, a nonprofit wildfire tracking app powered by volunteers, has surged in popularity during the devastating Southern California wildfires. It provides real-time alerts to residents about approaching fires, helping them make life-saving decisions.
Watch Duty tracks wildfires and issues alerts to affected people. It has exploded in popularity in this last week amidst the devastating Southern California fires. As wildfires and windstorms continue to devastate neighborhoods across Southern California, residents need to know where fires are headed in order to make the quick decisions that will save their families’ lives. Watch Duty, a nonprofit app run by over 150 volunteers, is the answer.
The wildfire-tracking service notifies users in real-time about local fires. Grateful Californians have said the app is “As of Wednesday, Watch Duty, launched in 2021, has replaced ChatGPT as the top-downloaded free app in the Apple store. Watch Duty CEO John Millsto The Los Angeles Times that it had 7.2 million yearly active users in 2024 and it added 600,000 new users in one day this week. The wildfire-monitoring service relies on expert volunteers, including active and retired first responders and firefighters. 911 dispatch calls about fires are automatically relayed to Watch Duty’s internal Slack service, according to the app. From there, the Watch Duty team monitors radio scanners, wildfire cameras, satellites, on-scene reports and public information like data from the National Weather Service.If these volunteers, called reporters, believe there is “a threat to life or property,” the app will send an alert to people in that area. People who are affected will continue to receive notifications about that fire until the danger has passed. Watch Duty organizes information on a map of the U.S. where users can see where fires are, as indicated by flame icons, and where active fire perimeters currently are. Users can also see lists of shelter locations and new evacuation centers, gain access to live wildfire cameras, submit photos and sign up to receive push notifications regarding evacuation orders about particular fires.Watch Duty currently operates in 22 predominantly Western states, including California, Colorado, Oregon, Hawaii and Texas. Within the app, you can choose which counties you want to receive alerts for. You can get all of Watch Duty’s main wildfire-tracking features for free, but by paying for membership, which starts at $24.99, you can get additional features like a firefighting flight tracker
Technology WILDFIRE FIRE SAFETY TECHNOLOGY EMERGENCY ALERTS CALIFORNIA
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