As LA blazes rage, even firefighters turn to Watch Duty

Marketplace Tech

American Public Media

Technology, News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Getting fast, comprehensive and accurate information is crucial during emergencies like the devastating wildfires still raging in the Los Angeles area. And over the last two terrifying weeks, one app has become the place to find it: Watch Duty. Operated by a nonprofit, the app was launched in 2021 to track wildfires in Northern California and now provides coverage for more than 20 states. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with David Merritt, Watch Duty’s chief technology officer, about how it all came together.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Need reliable wildfire info? Well, thank goodness, there's an app for that. From American
0:07.6	Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carrino. Getting fast and accurate information is crucial during emergencies like the devastating wildfires still raging in the Los Angeles area.
0:30.2	And over the last two terrifying weeks, one app has become the destination to find it.
0:36.7	Watch duty. Run by a nonprofit, the app launched in
0:40.2	2021 to track wildfires in Northern California and now provides coverage for more than 20 states.
0:47.3	We spoke with David Merritt, WatchDuty's chief technology officer, about how it all came together.
0:53.0	A close friend of mine, John Mills, moved from
0:55.7	San Francisco, bought a property in Healdsburg, which is about 90 minutes north. A lot of fires
1:01.3	around there in Sonoma County. And I think within the first six months or a year, he had two
1:07.5	major fires that came probably within like a half mile and a quarter mile of his
1:12.0	property. And he was really frustrated and, you know, alarmed at the lack of information.
1:19.7	He learned about one of those fires because he heard a helicopter.
1:22.4	So he found people that were doing reporting, good reporting on some of these fires on Facebook and
1:28.2	Twitter. And he had the idea, why don't we build a platform for this? Why don't we give a voice
1:33.3	to what these reporters are already doing and make a much better solution? We built it in 80 days,
1:40.4	an initial proof of concept, launched it. And it was a huge hit. Everybody in, we launched in four counties, Sonoma, Napa, Lake, and Mendocino, all in
1:51.1	Northern California, that first year.
1:53.5	And firefighters loved it, the community loved it.
1:56.9	We got a couple hundred thousand people that used it, and we realized that there was really
2:00.8	something there. It's so incredible that firefighters are using this, that you're providing
2:06.0	data that, I mean, even firefighters don't have in one place. It surprised us. You know, we built
2:12.8	this for the public that needed to know this information. And then we found out that, you know, during fires, there's mutual aid where, you know,
	...

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