Paulette Lifton woke up on her 67th birthday on Tuesday morning in a panic to smoke pluming in the distance of her home in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The first person she called was her sister Annette.
“What’s going on?” Ms. Lifton asked.
“You have to download the Watch Duty app,” her sister responded.
Ms. Lifton did just that, tracking the spread of the fire through the app’s map and updates as she packed her car with her most prized possessions — her favorite sequin jacket; her dogs, King Charles spaniels, Elle and Sansa; and the two Emmys she won as a television and movie sound editor.
For Ms. Lifton and thousands of other Los Angeles residents, Watch Duty has become a lifeline in tracking the multiple wildfires blazing around the city. In a county of nearly 10 million people, the news of the app has spread by word of mouth and in online community groups.
The app has sometimes provided faster and more reliable updates than the city’s buggy mobile notification system.
On Thursday night, Los Angeles County’s alert system broadcast an erroneous evacuation alert to all residents in its jurisdiction, instead of just to those near the West Hills neighborhood, which was threatened by the Kenneth Fire.