When Cal Fire began advertising a new app for near real-time updates on wildfires and evacuations this month, Instagram users quickly noticed some similarities to another app on their phone.
Cal Fire does not credit Watch Duty as inspiration for the new app, AwareCA, yet it alleviates an uneasiness many fire officials have with that app. Watch Duty exploded in popularity by providing up-to-the-minute firefighting updates, fire perimeters, and on-the-scene reports to people previously stuck navigating a fractured system of emergency alerts that gave minimal information.
Suddenly, residents were getting life-and-death information from a source over which emergency officials had no control.
“The government tends to be a little more conservative” about getting information out, said Mark Ghilarducci, former director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “Watch Duty tends to give you both a visual and an analytical view of what’s happening. … So, if you could see what’s coming at you, you could see where resources are being applied, you could see what the wind is doing … the better decisions you could make for yourself and your family.”
The company Intterra designed the app at the request of Cal Fire and local agencies. Robert Wolf, chief executive of Intterra, thinks there is room for both apps. He sees Watch Duty as valuable for people who want “social-media-like” frequent, in-depth updates on wildfires, and AwareCA as a tool for Californians directly affected by a disaster who need certainty that information is accurate.
“To be honest, I don’t view it as competition,” he said.
AwareCA pulls evacuation updates and fire perimeter maps from official sources in near-real time and allows local fire and police departments to post updates directly. Watch Duty does pull information from official sources but also relies on staff and volunteers to listen to radios, monitor satellite data and analyze announcements from emergency departments to provide additional context.
“We’ve found that combination is what makes information most useful: real people with training and experience cross-referencing it, making things clearer when incidents get chaotic,” Watch Duty cofounder and chief executive John Mills said in a statement to The Times. “That’s why more than 35 million people have turned to Watch Duty for accurate reporting on wildfire and flood incidents … since our founding as a nonprofit.”
This can lead to wrong information, however. During the recent Norte fire in Orange County, Wolf pointed out, a Watch Duty regional captain accidentally reported an evacuation order had been lifted before it actually was. Watch Duty quickly fixed the error, and the evacuation order was officially lifted soon after.
“Let’s be clear, Watch Duty and their team are trying to do the best they can to get information,” said David Acuña, Cal Fire battalion chief and public information officer. But with AwareCA, “you’re not relying on, ‘Well, what did I hear on that really static-y radio?’”
Errors in chaotic situations are not unique to Watch Duty. L.A. County sent erroneous evacuation alerts during last year’s L.A. fires.
Ghilarducci sees Watch Duty as no different in that regard from news channels or publications from which residents already were receiving constant updates. “I mean, come on, how many times does the news put out stuff that’s not accurate?” he said.
Intterra has for years provided software to the state that helps emergency officials collect the latest information, such as fire perimeter maps created by Cal OES intel airplanes, and share it with firefighters in the field. As Intterra began hearing both the admiration fire chiefs had for Watch Duty and their frustration with it, the company started designing the Aware app.
Around the same time, Cal Fire realized there was a huge demand for the information it publishes on its website, including the number of firefighters assigned to an incident, where firefighting aircraft are flying and updates on fire size and containment. During last year’s L.A. fires, the department had more than 100 million visits to its site, Acuña said. So, Cal Fire asked Intterra to make a California-specific app.
Intterra still is adding features to AwareCA and signing up more local fire departments. It already has statewide updates and evacuation orders on all fires over 10 acres, with detailed local information on fires and other emergencies from local authorities. Intterra charges local departments to join to keep it free for users. It’s adding more flood and coastal data as California faces an intense El Niño season.
Wolf hopes AwareCA — the first statewide version of its Aware app design — marks the start of a new era for emergency communication across the United States. The company plans to launch a version for the country’s largest state next year: AwareAK.
Watch Duty covers all 50 states.
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