For days, horrific wildfires have torn through Los Angeles, and they are still raging. The Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles have moved so fast that people have been stuck in their homes or had to abandon cars and wheelchairs on the side of the road to escape the flames. Those waiting to hear whether their houses have burned are living in agonized dread. Many of them have turned to Watch Duty, a fire-tracking app that has become an indispensable source of information in an uncertain time.
Watch Duty is an app that tracks wildfires and disaster information and presents it to users in as close to real time as possible in the form of maps and notifications about fire perimeters, evacuation zones, and air quality. Its CEO and founding father is John Clarke Mills, a Northern California resident who was inspired to create the app after a wildfire in 2021 threatened his home. Frustrated by a lack of timely information about the whereabouts of the fire and unsure whether he should evacuate, Mills funneled that anger and anxiety into a platform that aims to help people track fire movemen... Read more
