‘All Hands on Deck’: How Watch Duty Keeps Up With the California Wildfires

While the destructive Los Angeles fires rage, all eyes have turned to the app that lets you track them. WIRED spoke with Watch Duty founder John Mills about how the platform has met the moment.

For three days, horrific wildfires have torn through Los Angeles and 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.