Watch Duty App Sees Surge as Californians Track Devastating Los Angeles Wildfires

The wildfire-tracking nonprofit app has gained over 1.4 million new users this week, providing critical real-time updates during a disaster that has claimed lives and displaced thousands.

The Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles County have killed at least five people, destroyed over 2,000 structures, and forced more than 130,000 evacuations since Tuesday.
Watch Duty, a nonprofit app launched in 2021, has become a vital tool for residents, offering real-time wildfire tracking, evacuation alerts, and safety updates via a map-based platform.
The app combines official data from agencies like Cal Fire with information from wildfire cameras, satellite imagery, and a team of 200 reporters and volunteers monitoring emergency radio traffic.
This week alone, the app surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, gaining 600,000 new users in 12 hours and handling unprecedented traffic of 30,000 requests per second.
Watch Duty’s founder, John Mills, plans to expand the app to include tracking other natural disasters like floods and severe weather events, reflecting the growing need for disaster response tools in a changing climate.