As Los Angeles residents closely monitor the fires forcing tens of thousands to evacuate their homes, a new fire-tracking app is gaining traction. The free app, Watch Duty, now tops Apple’s list of most downloaded free iOS apps.
Watch Duty CEO John Mills told business news channel Cheddar that a network of volunteers go beyond government agency updates.
“We have active and retired first responders, dispatchers and volunteers who listen to fire service radio chatter,” Mills said. “So we hear how they’re fighting the fire and what they’re doing in real-time. And that’s how we give you such granular information about what’s actually happening on the fire ground.”
The app, founded in 2021 and operated as a nonprofit, shows locations where volunteers find fires. Users can also allow the app to track their location. It’ll show them how far away a fire is without collecting or selling their data.
In December, before these fires began, the team behind the app said they have over 7 million active users each year.
While Watch Duty has become a refuge for people chasing updates about their neighborhood across local news and social media, authorities warn that no app is foolproof.
A spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state’s fire management agency, told The Washington Post that any unofficial source like Watch Duty may not always provide the same amount of context as official announcements.
