If you live in Los Angeles, you're probably already well familiar with Watch Duty, the free app that shows active fires, mandatory evacuation zones, air quality index, wind direction, and other information visible to everyone. Is. From firefighters to common people have begun to trust During this week's historic and devastating wildfires.
Watch Duty is unique in the tech world in that it doesn't care about user engagement, time spent, or ad sales. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit behind it only cares about the accuracy of the information it provides and the speed at which the service delivers that information. The app itself has gained popularity and has reached the top of Apple and Google's app stores. More than 1 million people have downloaded it It's been these last few days alone.
The beauty of the app lies in its simplicity. It doesn't scrape user data, show ads, require any kind of login, or track your information. Its simple tech stack and UI – much of which is maintained by volunteer engineers and journalists – has likely helped save countless lives. While Watch Duty is free to use, the app accepts tax-deductible donations and offers two tiers of membership that unlock additional features, like a firefighting flight tracker and the ability to set alerts for more than four counties. Capacity.
With plans to expand the service across the United States, as well as overseas and into other emergency services, Watch Duty may eventually replace some of the slower services. and less reliable Local government warning systems for millions of people.
Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images
An app born from fire
Ideas for Watch Duty Co-founder John Mills came to While he was trying to save his off-grid Sonoma County home from the Walbridge fire in 2020. He realized that there was not a single source for all the information people needed to protect themselves from the fire, which ultimately killed 33 people and destroyed 156 others. Home. John and his friend David Merritt, co-founder and CTO of Watch Duty, decided to create an app to help.
“It came from an idea John had and he talked to me about it four years ago,” explains Merritt. The Verge“We built the app in 60 days, and it was run entirely by volunteers, with no full-time employees. This was a side project for a lot of engineers, so the aim was to keep it as simple as possible.
Fire reporting in fire-prone areas is piecemeal and often scattered on platforms like Facebook and X, where fire departments and counties have verified pages sharing relevant updates. But increasingly, social media platforms are placing automated access to alert services behind paywalls. Governments also use a variety of warning systems, causing delays that can cost lives, especially in fast-spreading fires like the Palisades and Eaton fires, which require more time for people to evacuate. Have to be forced to. 180,000 peopleAnd sometimes, these are government-run Alerts are sent in errorDue to which there is widespread confusion.
Watch Duty makes all this simple for millions of people.
“We see what we're doing as a public service,” says Merritt. “This is a utility that everyone should have, that provides timely, relevant Have Information. Right now, it's very scattered. Even the agencies themselves, which have good intentions, have their hands tied by bureaucracy or contracts. We partner with government sources focusing on firefighting.
“We see what we're doing as a public service.”
One of the biggest problems associated with fires, in particular, is that they can spread rapidly and destroy large portions of land and structures within minutes. For example, the winds that caused the Palisades Fire to spread to more than 10,000 acres 90 mph on tuesdayWhen minutes matter, the piecemeal alert system replaced by watch duty can cause delays that cost lives.
“Some of the push notifications and text messages that government agencies use have a 15-minute delay, which is not good for fires,” says Merritt. “We shoot for receiving push notifications within a minute. Right now, 1.5 million people in LA are getting push notifications through the app. That's a lot of messages to send in 60 seconds. In general, people are getting it all pretty much at the same time.”
A simple tech stack
For watch duty, this type of mass communication requires a group of dedicated staff and skilled volunteers along with reliable technology. Merritt says Watch Duty relies on a number of corporate partners with whom it has relationships and contracts to provide its service.
“We shoot for receiving push notifications within a minute.”
The app is built on a mix of technology, including Google's Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, Firebase, Fastly, and Heroku. Merritt says the app uses some AI, but only for internal routing of alerts and emails. Watch Duty's reporters — who listen to the scanner and update the app with push notifications about everything from air drops to evacuation updates — are mostly volunteers who coordinate coverage through Slack.
“All information is judged on quality rather than quantity,” he says. “We have a code of conduct for journalists. For example, we never report injuries or provide specific addresses. All of this is designed with a specific set of criteria. We don't editorialize. “We report what we hear on the scanner.”
According to Merit, the app has 100 percent uptime. Even though it started with volunteer engineers, the nonprofit has gradually added more full-time people. He says, “We still have volunteers helping us, but as we grow, things become more complex and we have more rigorous processes, it's becoming more about internal paid staff.” Is.”
“All information is checked for quality over quantity.”
He says there are no plans to ever charge for the app or scrape user data. The approach is as follows field of dreams How to Build a Free App That Saves Lives: If you build it well, the funding will come.
“This is the opposite of what a lot of technology does,” Merritt says. “We don't want you to spend time in the app. You take the information and get out. We have the option to add more photos, but we limit them to photos that provide a different view of the fires we're tracking. We don't want people to waste scrolling.
Photo Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Gathering information in the Trump era
Watch duties rely heavily on publicly available information from places like the National Weather Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Should the incoming Trump administration decide to follow through on the threats? Dismantle and dissolve the EPA (which monitors air quality) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Parent agency of the National Weather ServiceSuch steps will affect the operational efficiency of watch duty.
Still, Merritt is optimistic. “We would be largely protected from any change in policy,” he says. “We are either already buying that information ourselves or we are happy to buy it, and we will bear that cost. The fact that we're soon going to cover the entire US will pay off the cost of anything that changes from a policy perspective. Our operating costs are mostly salaries. We're trying to hire really good engineers and we have a really solid platform. If we need to raise grants to purchase data from the National Weather Service, we will.
No matter what the next administration does, it's clear that Watch Duty has become an important and essential app for the people of Southern California at this time. The app currently covers 22 states and there are plans to roll it out across the country soon.
According to Merritt, “We've had 1.4 million app downloads in the last few days.” “I think we've only gotten 60 support tickets, so that shows there's something working there. “We're really just focused on distributing this information.”