Watch Duty

★★★★★

Like everyone else in the Los Angeles area, I installed Watch Duty in mid-January when fires were burning down entire neighborhoods in Altadena and Pacific Palisades and scouring the mountains. This is what official alerts should have been: Clear maps of fire perimeters and evacuation zones, and alerts when conditions changed.

While the LA Times fire map is always useful, it’s not always specific enough, especially when you want a sense of which side of the fire perimeter is still burning, which zones are under orders vs. warnings, etc.

And the official alerts going out on emergency channels tend to be too specific, except when they accidentally went out to the entire county.

Being able to look on a map and see things like, “Oh, that alert is only for the Eaton fire in Woodland Hills, it hasn’t burned over the mountains and through 10 miles of city in the last 5 minutes” was really helpful!

It’s a non-profit, volunteer organization, and the emergency alerts are free. I decided to buy the $25/year membership to help keep it going. It’s a small price. Especially since I’m going to want this through fire season, which is year-round these days.