Watch Duty, an app designed to warn citizens about nearby wildfires, has grown to more than 2 million users over the past week as fires broke out in Los Angeles.
John Mills, Watch Duty’s founder and CEO, was inspired to create the app after the recent fires in California.
The app relies on a team of about 200 volunteers, many of whom are active and retired firefighters, dispatchers, and first responders.
“They have a lot of experience being on fire scenes and listening to fire radios for a very long time,” Mills said. “After thinking about this for a year, we realized that the only way to solve this problem is to ban them completely and then build this application so they can talk to the world.”
Mills said the app focuses solely on fire activity.
“There are a lot of things that are intentionally missing in the app. We don’t talk about helicopter accidents, we don’t publish names of people or firefighters,” Mills said.
Information is gathered from official sources and radio communications, including maps obtained from the source of the fire.
“We are extremely committed to disseminating safe and actionable information in real time,” Mills said. “Human-centered design is exactly how we think.”
With strong winds expected next week, the team on duty continues to prepare for future reports.
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