Learn about Wildfire Aware.

Learn more about Wildfire Aware below. We rose from the ashes of the Zogg Fire and are working toward many exciting features in the future; subscribe today to join us in the journey.

Zogg Fire

On Sunday, September 27th, 2020 the small community of Igo and Ono were forever changed. At approximately 2:44 pm a gray pine tree fell into energized powerlines on Zogg Mine road that started a cascade of events that would end with four community members dead, 204 homes destroyed and an entire community changed forever.

As the community recovered and the stories of that day emerged, a common theme emerged. Community members did not have the time they deserved to flee the fire. The first official notification of evacuations did not come until almost 2 hours after it started, long after the fire had already burned through the communities of Igo and Ono. Many community members learned of the fire from a neighbor calling, a family friend from outside the area hearing of the fire, or simply hearing sirens. In the technology age this is unacceptable.

Wildfire Aware emerged from the ashes, created by our founder, who lost her childhood home in the fire and worked tirelessly with her husband to save her mother's house the first night of the fire. During the second night, they worked hard to save their own and neighbors' houses. As a former CAL FIRE GIS specialist, infrared interrupter, and 9-1-1 dispatcher, she knew what information was available and began the process of getting the information into the public's hands through an easily accessible app. As her neighbor has dubbed, "Peace of mind in your pocket." She has a large vision for the future and believes that the technology will quickly be available for early and accurate detection of wildfires. This will help in the final phase of Wildfire Aware, which will incorporate her patent-pending (63/413,053) public-friendly fire prediction model, dubbed the Wildfire Cone of Confidence.

Wildfire Aware was not the only app to emerge from the fires that swept California 2020. Watch Duty also emerged out of the Santa Rosa area, with reporters who listen to radio traffic and reported what they heard. However, they have a different philosophy on that Wildfire Aware to alert the public of new fires. Regardless, both applications are excellent tools for your wildfire season toolbox.

Wildfire Aware Notifications

Wildfire Aware™ is positioned to fill that gap between when the fire starts and when official government evacuation notifications are sent. Wildfire Aware ™ allows everyone to get notifications within minutes of a wildland fire being dispatched within the wildlands and wildland-urban interfaces (WUI) throughout the United States. Every community member should be Wildfire Aware!

Wildfire Aware™ provides three main types of notifications:

New Fire notifications arrive within minutes of a wildland fire being dispatched. We do not filter fire notifications or have a minimum acreage criterion before notifications are sent. If firefighters respond to a dispatched fire, a Wildfire Aware™ notification is made as soon as it is available (every once in a while notifications are delayed to issues outside our control). It is important to also realize where the fire shows initially on the map may not always be accurate, but should be within the vicinity.
Multiple Day Fire notifications are sent when the fire perimeter is updated (usually in the morning and evening) for ongoing fires that have encroached on your notification areas. We also provide updates when official government information is updated via InciWeb or CAL FIRE incidents, when available. This will allow you to stay aware of larger ongoing fires which are sometimes hard to track.
National Weather Service (NWS) notifications are sent when weather conditions are conducive to wildfires or post-wildfire events (ie Debris Flows, Flooding, etc.). These notifications can help you prepare for a wildfire or recover from a wildfire safely.

Wildfire Aware™ is unique because the notifications are customized to you in three distinct ways:

Customized Notifications Distances are unique to each location and can range from 1 to 25 miles based on the user preference; we recommend a minimum of 5 miles. In our experience, fires can quickly move 5 miles when the conditions are right. If you set a larger area, you will likely get significantly more wildfire alerts, be warned.
Multiple Locations can be set up and customized for notifications. For example, maybe for a user’s home, they would like to know about all fires within 5 miles; but for their summer cabin, they want to have notifications for multiday fires within 25 miles. We are very generous in our number of locations allowing you to have up 50 locations that you are monitoring. So, when you are traveling you can set up a notification for your vacation destination that is nestled back in the trees and delete it when you leave. We limit to 50 locations to limit abuse of the application if you need more locations, please reach out and we will do our best to accommodate.
Customized NWS (National Weather Service) Alerts can be tailored to the user’s desires. While Wildfire Aware™ has curated a specific set of NWS Alerts related to wildfires, we want the user to be able to customize it to their needs. We offer four distinct categories to subscribe to: Potential Fire Weather, Thunderstorms and Tornados, Post-Fire Flooding, and NWS Evacuations. (Note the NWS sometimes provides Evacuation notifications so we have included them to help get the message out quickly during fast-moving wildfires, they are currently not used consistently throughout the United States).

Wildfire Aware™ was created to help the public stay aware of wildfires. We hope that it can save lives in the years to come by allowing for quicker notifications of wildfires. We would like to take a moment to acknowledge those who have lost their lives to wildfires, you will forever be in our hearts and prayers. Please stay safe out there and reach out to us if you have any questions: information@wildfireware.ai. If we help you escape a fast-moving wildfire, we would love to know that we are making a difference and would appreciate hearing your story.

Wildfire Aware and The Analytical Moose

Wildfire Aware™ is owned by The Analytical Moose®. The Analytical Moose® makes no warranties or guarantees, expressed or implied as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the data provided within the Wildfire Aware™ mobile application. Wildfire Aware™ is not intended to provide directions to users; it is intended solely to provide situational awareness for the public around wildfires. We have exciting plans for the future as we continue to grow and help communities stay ahead of fast-moving wildfires, including early detection of wildfires (both terrestrial and spaceborne) and fire prediction using our patent pending Wildfire Cone of Confidence™ fire propagation model (US Patent No. 63/413,053).

Spire provides weather data. National Weather Service alerts are provided directly from the National Weather Service. National Interagency Fire Center provides initial Fires and perimeter information. The Incident Information System (InciWeb) provides links to multiple-day fire information. CAL FIRE incident information comes directly from CAL FIRE Incident information. Thermal activity detected by the VIIRS sensors on the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellites during the last 7 days is shown on the map for reference. In California, the FIRIS perimeters are displayed when available.

The following National Weather Service notification are included in each notification group: Potential Fire Weather (Red Flag Warning, Extreme Fire Danger, Fire Warning, Fire Weather Watch, Special Weather States, Severe Weather Statement, High Wind Warning, High Wind Advisory, Hazard Weather Outlook, Wind Advisory), Thunderstorms and Tornados (Storm Watch, Storm Warning, Tornado Watch, Tornado Warning, Severe Thunderstorm Watch, Severe Thunderstorm Warning), Post Fire Flooding (Flash Flood Statement, Flash Flood Watch, Flash Flood Warning, Flood Advisory, Flood Statement, Flood Warning, Small Stream Flood Advisory, Urban and Small Stream Flood Advisory), and NWS Evacuations (Evacuation – Immediate, Local Area Emergency, Shelter in Place Warning).