More than a million people have installed this application published by a non-profit organization and financed by user donations. The objective now is to export this know-how.
Published on 14/01/2025 08:34
Updated on 14/01/2025 08:35
Reading time: 3min
As the wind continues to fan the fires near Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 14, and the death toll of 24 is likely to rise further, a local application, Watch Duty, has become essential to follow the evolution of the fires. It is the story of a “success story” as only Americans know how to write them. An application created in total anonymity, by an engineer who was desperately looking for information during a forest fire near his home. Three years later, it was propelled to the top of downloads. More than a million people have installed it in recent days. And today, it has become the reference application for residents, firefighters and law enforcement in the USA.
Its great strength is to centralize and update in real time information currently scattered between local alerts, SMS alerts, messages broadcast on social networks or in the press. She will even get information directly from the firefighters and the police. And it presents everything on a map with the precise location of fires, evacuation zones and places to take shelter.
The system is quite sophisticated, since we can superimpose the wind map, that of air quality, and the different sites where the authorities intervene. In short, everything you need to stay safe.
Obviously, it’s free, without advertising or creating an account. The application is published by a non-profit organization and financed by user donations. The application relies on a network of firefighters, rescuers and reporters who scan radio communications and ensure the validity of the information before publishing it. It is now seen as a public service. Its officials were also invited to the White House in October 2024 to discuss the limits of current alert systems.
Now, they want to export internationally. Recruitment and networking will begin in several countries. They haven’t specified which ones yet. The application will very soon expand its scope to include floods and extreme weather phenomena. Because, here too, there is room to improve current alert systems.
