doRisty Thomas began to panic when she called 911 for the second time on a warm October day, but couldn’t get through. He watched anxiously as the column of black smoke grew larger as it poured over his rural community in central California.
Then he heard a familiar ping.
Watch Duty, an app that alerts users to the risk of wildfires and provides critical information about fires as they develop, had already recorded the fire. She relaxed. The cavalry was approaching.
“I can’t express the sigh of relief,” he said, recalling how soon afterward sirens sounded in the neighborhood and helicopters flew overhead. “We were watching it happen and had questions, but Watch Duty answered them all.”
Thomas is one of millions of Watch Duty evangelists who helped fuel the app’s meteoric rise. In just three years since its launch, the organization now has up to 7.2 million active users and up to 512 million page views at peak times. For a nonprofit run primarily by volunteers, the numbers are impressive, even by startup standards. But they are not surprising.
Watch Duty has changed the lives of people in fire-prone areas. No longer will they have to search for information when the skies darken and ash fills the air, users can now rely on an app for fast and accurate information, and it’s free.
It offers access to essential information about where the dangers are, with maps of fire perimeters, evacuation areas and where to seek shelter. Users can find wildfire camera feeds, track aircraft positions, and view wind data all in one place. The app also helps identify when there is little cause for alarm, when risks have decreased, and which agencies are working in the trenches.
“The app isn’t just about alerts, it’s about a state of mind,” said Watch Duty CEO John Mills. The Silicon Valley alum founded the organization after moving from San Francisco to a sprawling ranch in Sonoma County, where fire danger is high. After starting in just four California counties, Watch Duty covered the entire state in its first year before quickly expanding across the western United States and Hawaii.
As the community has grown (reaching people in 14 states by 2024), new features and improved accuracy have accentuated its popularity and, according to Mills, filled unmet needs.
In recent years, it’s not just residents who have come to trust the app. A host of first responders, from firefighters to city officials to journalists, are also connected, ensuring key players are on the same page.
“People always thank me for Watch Duty and I say, ‘You’re welcome, and I’m sorry you need it,’” Mills said. But it is clear that the need is real. In each new area where they have offered the service, word of mouth has driven usage.
“We didn’t spend any money on marketing,” Mills said. “We just let the genie out of the bottle to let the world know that things could never go back to the way they were.”
The app emerged from an emergency information ecosystem on social media that has communicated unofficial information for years. But unlike other platforms that seek to capture the user’s attention and keep it there, Watch Duty does not have algorithms that filter or obscure important information.
It relies on volunteers called “reporters” who listen to emergency updates over the low hum of radio static, analyze data from the National Weather Service and other sources, and discuss the findings with each other before sending push notifications to its user base. assets.
Led by real people, including active and retired wildland firefighters, dispatchers and veteran storm spotters, the team collaborates to quickly gather and examine information when a fire occurs.
An automated dispatch transmits alerts to 911 via Slack, putting Watch Duty reporters in the particular region into action. Radio scanners, forest fire cameras, satellites and announcements from officials are scoured for information. When conditions are confirmed, they publish the information and add a push notification to users in the area if there is a threat to life or property.
The network is powered by hundreds of people who donate their time and a small staff of just 15 reporters and engineers. Together, they have alerted the public to more than 9,000 wildfires this year.
Meanwhile, support has been pouring in. This year, Watch Duty received $5.6 million in grant funding, individual donors, and a new professional subscription model that offers paying users information on things like where electric and gas transmission lines intersect the footprint. of fire, utility managed lands, private landowners and agency responsibility areas, plus a search function for historical and inactive fires.
But this is just the beginning, according to Mills.
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“I didn’t call this ‘Fire Duty’ on purpose,” he said, in a nod to the plan to begin reporting on other risks in the near future, including flooding and extreme weather events.
As the climate crisis intensifies severe storms, modeling has also shown the important role that critical information can play in helping at-risk communities adapt. In addition to empowering residents in times of chaos, the app has started conversations at the highest levels of government about communication gaps and challenges during disasters.
Watch Duty was one of a select few companies invited to speak during a White House roundtable earlier this year, a huge step from the initial pushback they received from local officials after the launch, who feared that information in the platform incites panic or spreads misinformation. .
“Nobody gave us approval to do this,” Mills said. “It was (built) from the bottom up, from the bottom of the forest to the White House.” Other agencies have also been using its services, attracted by the easy-to-use one-stop shop for information.
The Idaho Land Department uses a direct feed of Watch Duty on its own site. When he first launched the app, Mills told The Guardian that he hoped the then-small team would become “so important, so loud and so obnoxious that they couldn’t be ignored.” He now works directly with fire marshals, incident management teams, and agencies such as California State Parks.
But the most important stakeholders driving Watch Duty’s momentum are people like Cristy Thomson, who are turning to the app to navigate the chaos caused by a catastrophic fire. The fire that broke out near his home last October was far from the first.
Thompson was one of thousands affected by the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which consumed more than 80,000 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains, destroying 1,490 homes and other structures and claiming one life.
His house was saved. But during disasters he helps evacuate horses and other animals, a task that adds additional layers of chaos and the need for coordination. Before Watch Duty, he said there were many more challenges.
Uncertainty and confusion among residents has often ended in distress for the horse community who are quick to respond when disasters strike, he said. Frantic evacuations can mean more animals are left behind.
“It was a great comfort to know that we weren’t the only ones on the face of this earth who knew there was a fire up there,” he said. “We knew they were putting everything they had into it.”
That’s why you welcome the admittedly “unpleasant” ping when it rings on your phone. She is grateful to the volunteers who watch and the reliable information they provide and hopes even more people will have Watch Duty in their pockets in the years to come. The app has been “twice helpful in saving the heart,” he said.
“The most important thing is that you know you can trust him,” he added. “That’s the value.”