Since the Palisades Fire broke out on the morning of January 7, Several more wildfires are raging Los Angeles area. At least 27 people died and more than 12,000 buildings were destroyed.
In the middle of it all, there is a false evacuation alert Send to all Los Angeles County has approximately 10 million residents The events of Jan. 9 added to the confusion as many Angelenos didn't know what to believe.
Sharvari Akre-Bhide, a clinical researcher living in Los Angeles, told CBS News, "While the city alerts were certainly alarming, after a few rounds of mistakes, "We cannot accept any city push alerts at face value."
Instead, Los Angeles residents have flocked to Watch Duty, an app that shows real-time updates and alerts on wildfires in 21 states.
In the early days of the fire, Watch Duty shot to No. 1 in the Apple App Store seemingly overnight. It provides users with easy-to-read maps showing burn zones, evacuation zones, fire cameras, and more. The figures are sourced from publicly available data and verified by the Fire Fact Checking Team.
"Sending false emergency alerts is a quick way to erode trust," John Mills, co-founder and CEO of the app, told CBS News.
Since its creation in 2021, Watch Duty has been a lifeline for many in wildfire-prone communities.
"We did note the first city alert enough to put together an emergency kit, but other than that the on-call staff were being monitored before any action was taken," Akre-Beed said. "… "We've basically been cross-checking every city push alert that goes out immediately through duty and then reassessing it."
She's not the only one. Longtime California resident Keri Gailloux told CBS News she checks Watch Duty the same way she checks her favorite weather app.
"This is about facts," Gallou said. "It's about real, real-time, as much information as possible. While I love hearing what people think about things, this is where misinformation can really happen."
How duty watch works
Watch Duty says the process of tracking and verifying its information is deceptively simple. Information comes in, is acknowledged, and sent to the user.
"The difference with Watch is that the people reporting on this were people who were on the scene and they understood the importance of 'you have a five-minute window to evacuate,'" Gallux said.
Watch Duty has more than 150 volunteers, including active and retired first responders, firefighters and dispatchers, who monitor radios, scan the Internet and contact officials. If information comes in through one of these channels, the team coordinates and confirms the various new information. Once confirmed, the incident owner sends an update to the app, which then alerts users in the area.
“Everything we do here has a history,” Mills explains. "So it's hard to argue because that's what was said at the time. So we tried to remove opinion and sensationalism from it."
Mills said the direct process of facts and science "used to be the world we lived in, and we want to bring that back."
“We didn’t start this because of misinformation,” Mills said. “We start by looking at good information.”
Integrity management
Mills noted that he believes the state's warning system is outdated and cannot handle future violent natural disasters, which is one of the reasons for California's chaos.
"They have these mysterious checks and balances that come from the FEMA ICS (Incident Command System) structure that was invented in the '70s," Mills said. "Disaster comes faster and there are no updates."
Mills' comments came as the Los Angeles Fire Department under scrutiny About its response to the Palisades fire.
"I'm not blaming the Los Angeles Emergency Operations Center or any of these people here. This is a tough job," Mills said.
Gallou seemed to agree.
"If you were waiting for the news to tell you what to do, or you were waiting for a fire truck to show up, you might have died," Guyou said. “(Observation duty) understands the urgency.”
Mills believes that in addition to fires, the services of watch centers are also needed, climate change Putting more people into a potentially catastrophic situation.
“We saw the same nonsense during flooding, recent tsunami warning errors in California, and misinformation spread around panic.”
Mills said Watch Duty is unique from its Silicon Valley peers in that it is a nonprofit with no plans to change.
"Watch Duty is a nonprofit because, I mean, the very simple answer is, it's the right thing to do," Mills said.
With 2.8 million users, premium membership options, and full-time employees, Watch Duty has significant cash flow. It raised $5.6 million in funding through grants, donations and paid memberships, according to the company's 2024 annual report. But Mills has no plans to put the app behind a paywall.
"This is a government service and a municipal operation that needs to exist free of ads, spam, sign-ins, marketing to third parties, and selling you fire hoses while you're trying to run for your life," Mills said. "It's ridiculous, so we're not going to be a part of it."
So how should California government officials respond? "If I were them, I would pick up the phone and call me," Mills said.