Early Wildfire & Emergency Warning System

Community Safety

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Wildfires can spread rapidly and unpredictably, making it difficult for people to evacuate or take appropriate safety measures. In many cases, official notices may not be issued until a fire is already well underway, leaving people with little time to plan and prepare. To address this problem, our emergency response technology project focuses on providing pre-alerts to help people safely plan and prepare for wildfires before an official notice is issued. By utilizing real-time fire department data, our mobile app alerting system can detect and alert users to potential wildfire threats before they become major emergencies. This will enable individuals and communities to take proactive steps to mitigate the impact of wildfires, such as evacuating early, securing their homes, and preparing emergency kits. By addressing the problem of inadequate pre-alerts for wildfires, our project aims to reduce the risk of property damage, injury, and loss of life due to wildfires.

The mitigation action is the implementation of a real-time alerting system for wildfire pre-alerts using our emergency response technology project. This system will utilize real-time fire department data to provide early warnings to communities and individuals about potential wildfire threats before an official notice is issued. Our team of dispatchers will be monitoring the fire department data and will immediately send out alerts to affected areas via the mobile app alerting system. These alerts will include information on the location and severity of the wildfire threat, as well as instructions on how to safely evacuate or prepare for the potential emergency. By implementing this mitigation action, we aim to reduce the impact of wildfires on communities and individuals by providing them with more time to prepare and take necessary safety measures. Ultimately, this will help to prevent property damage, injury, and loss of life due to wildfires.

Implementing a real-time alerting system for wildfire pre-alerts will provide protection from future natural hazards by enabling communities and individuals to take proactive measures to prepare for and mitigate the impact of wildfires. By providing early warnings and actionable information, individuals and communities can take steps to protect themselves and their property, such as evacuating early, securing their homes, and preparing emergency kits. This will help to reduce the risk of injury, property damage, and loss of life during a wildfire. In addition, the use of real-time fire department data in our alerting system can be extended to other natural hazards, such as floods or earthquakes, to provide early warnings and enable individuals and communities to take appropriate action to protect themselves. Individuals will be more prepared for emergencies, receive alerts within seconds of an emergency being declared, and most importantly know exactly what to do.

The implementation plan for our wildfire pre-alert system will build on our existing core software, which has been developed, tested, and used by over 100,000 users each month in the City of Los Angeles. In the past few months, we've sent over 130,000 push notifications to mobile devices for incidents that directly impacted an individual's safety. We've received large amounts of feedback from our users, including heartfelt thank you's for doing what we can to keep them safe. Our user count continues to grow by significant amounts each month as we continue our outreach and partnership efforts, along with our loyal user base recommending us to their friends and family.