LA residents find a lifeline in this free wildfire-tracking app

Watch Duty, a nonprofit-run app that tracks wildfires with live maps and alerts, has shot to the top of Apple’s App Store charts this week as Californian residents look to navigate catastrophic blazes devastating Los Angeles.

The app launched in 2021 and is now available in 22 states, providing evacuation warnings, real-time text, photo and video updates, and a map interface with flame icons to show regions where fires are blazing. Users can access information on evacuation routes, shelter locations, and firefighting efforts, alongside zooming in on the map view to see the latest updates for precise locations. It’s a one-stop shop for everything needed during a fire emergency.

Watch Duty is powered by a team of around 200 volunteers, many of which are retired or active firefighters, dispatchers, or first responders. The app pulls its wildfire information from official government reports, volunteer reporters, and 911 dispatch calls which are then vetted and monitored using radio scanners, wildlife cameras, satellites, and local announcements from law enforcement and fire services.

Watch Duty says that the community-bolstered network allows it to provide more real-time information than fire-tracking services like CalFire and InciWeb which rely on government alerts. The app is used by active firefighters and has become a lifeline for people across the western United States who live in areas deemed to be high-risk fire zones — Watch Duty says its active users increased to 7.2 million by December 2024 compared to 1.9 million in 2023.

Californians on social media are encouraging each other to download the app in light of the ongoing LA fires raging across thousands of acres of land fueled by high winds and extremely dry conditions. As of Thursday morning, the LA Times reports that the fires have killed five people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, including the homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal, Adam Brody, and James Woods.

Over 367,000 California households are currently without power according to PowerOutage, and at least 130,000 LA residents are now under evacuation orders.

“Seconding the Watch Duty app so hard,” said one Californian on a Threads post encouraging users to download the app. “I live in Butte County, CA, (near where the Camp Fire was in 2018) and Watch Duty has been immeasurably helpful during fires like the Park Fire last summer.”

Watch Duty’s vice president of operations Nick Russell says that users are drawn to the app because it’s more accessible than manually checking several sources and social media updates, and because of its network for vetting and verifying factual information. Conspiracy theories surrounding natural disasters and climate change have become a common occurrence online, with misinformation regarding weather-related events being shared by users across social media platforms.

“One of the big things for us, our big theme, is quality over quantity. We’re not in a big hurry to get information that we’re going to have to go and retract later,” Russell told NBC News on Wednesday. “And so if it takes a few extra minutes to get it out there, that’s fine, but we want it to be that official info; and because we built a one-way communication platform, we don’t offer that venue for people to circulate nonsense ... And so it really puts the ball in our court for good information.”

Russell also noted that Watch Duty doesn’t collect or sell user data, instead relying on premium app subscriptions and funding from private donations to stay up and running. The core features of the app that are essential for fire monitoring, safety, and evacuation, are entirely available for free.

“I think it’s really important in today’s world, where so many people are trying to profit off disaster, to really understand that that’s not what Watch Duty is,” Russell said. “Watch Duty will remain free forever.”