One of the most critical apps in January was a real-time wildfire alert system powered by a nonprofit that has 15 employees and about 200 volunteers.
The app, Watch Duty, provides timely updates of the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, among others that burned — and continue to burn — in the Los Angeles region. Residents and first responders, including LA’s Emergency Operations Center, relied on the app to receive up-to-date information on the fast-moving fires that have so far burned more than 35,000 acres and killed at least 27 people.
CEO and cofounder John Mills told Business Insider in an interview that the app received 2.5 million downloads and 12 million active users in the past two weeks. Watch Duty shot to the top of Apple’s app stores in the first days of the fire.
Mills said that’s no reason to start charging more for Watch Duty’s services or try to further monetize from the app.
“We want to do this for the greater good, and the best way I found to do that is to use the nonprofit angle,” Mills said.
Watch Duty, which was founded in 2021, has no brick-and-mortar HQ, and its staff all work remotely. Mills himself has a background in tech and co-founded an operations platform for chain restaurants.
The CEO said he was motivated to start the organization shortly after he moved to Sonoma County in 2020, the same year California saw a record-number wildfires. The Walbridge Fire in Sonoma alone burned more than 55,000 acres.
“The Walbridge Fire was the ultimate one that really got me to do something about this, and that was the one that ended about a quarter mile from the edge of my property,” he said. “I evacuated for the first time and I spent seven nights just up all day, all night, trying to learn about what was going on, how to help, and what the problems were. It occurred to me that this was not going to get resolved any other way.”
Part of the advantage Watch Duty has is that it’s not restricted by boundaries or jurisdictions unlike government agencies, which could slow down the speed of updates and emergency notifications, Mills said.
“It’s really challenging because one county might have more advanced systems and the other one doesn’t, but the fire is tearing through multiple counties at a time, Mills said. “There’s not one integrated system that really helps tie all this together and that’s really where we shine.”
By 2024, according to its annual report, Watch Duty grew its yearly active users to 7.2 million people. The app provides updates across 22 states.
For regular users, Watch Duty remains free. Some can pay $25 a year for extra features such as flight tracking data. The organization has even started to build and sell government services, “albeit very cheap,” Mills said.
“People laugh. They say you should charge more. I’m like, that’s not the point, man. This is my life. I live in the woods. We’re going to make money, but the money is to support the free operation and pay our engineers and our reporters,” he said.
As a nonprofit, Watch Duty can accept donations. Tech CEOs including Snap’s Evan Spiegel and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have donated, Mills said. Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, has given $2 million, he added.
Mills said he intends to keep Watch Duty a nonprofit.
“We’ve been on phone calls with Amazon, Google, Apple — everyone is giving us resources to make sure this thing stays alive,” he said. “And so, I don’t need to sell out to keep the thing doing what it does.”
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