Fire-tracking app Watch Duty has turn out to be a vital supply of data for Los Angeles residents threatened by wildfires.
As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff defined, the app depends on a community of lively and retired firefighters, first responders, official authorities stories, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners to supply real-time updates on lively wildfires.
During this week’s fires, the place the official alerts have been could possibly be buggy or inaccurate, Watch Duty climbed to the highest of Apple’s App Store charts. And in an interview Saturday with The New York Times, CEO John Mills stated the app had been downloaded 2 million instances since Tuesday and seen 14 million distinctive customers this week.
Mills stated that the app is operated by a nonprofit funded primarily by donations, with 15 full-time workers and 200 workers. He insisted that Watch Duty collects little or no private information about customers and that he has no intention of promoting.
“I owe it to my group to not be a catastrophe capitalist,” he stated.
