Read more at source.
Read more at source.
Watch Duty was created by John Clarke Mills, a resident of Northern California who experienced firsthand the fear and uncertainty of a wildfire threatening his home in 2021. He channeled his frustration over the lack of timely information into creating an app that could help others track fire movements near them. The app has since grown into a critical resource, covering 22 states across the western and central US.
The devastating scale of the Los Angeles fires has brought an unprecedented number of users to the platform. The app gained 600,000 users overnight, becoming the top app in Apple's iOS app store, even unseating ChatGPT. While the app has surged in popularity before, it has never seen growth to this degree.
In an interview, John Mills shared insights into how Watch Duty's small team is managing the influx of users and what the future holds for the platform. Despite the challenge, the team is committed to providing vital, real-time information to those in need during these devastating fires.
This is bonkers, man. We're having our Oprah moment right now, unfortunately. There have been big fires before, but this one has really gone wild. This is such a destructive fire. This one is just so populated, that's the difference. We've had worse fires. But, like how do you judge worse? This is fucking disastrous. - John Mills, CEO of Watch Duty
