{"id":19808,"date":"2025-01-12T00:20:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T01:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19808"},"modified":"2025-01-12T01:30:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T01:30:30","slug":"watch-duty-a-wildfire-tracking-app-provides-a-lifeline-in-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19808","title":{"rendered":"Watch Duty, a Wildfire-Tracking App, Provides a Lifeline in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d Ms. Lifton asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to download the Watch Duty app,\u201d her sister responded.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lifton did just that, tracking the spread of the fire through the app\u2019s map and updates as she packed her car with her most prized possessions \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

For Ms. Lifton and thousands of other Los Angeles residents, Watch Duty<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The app has sometimes provided faster and more reliable updates than the city\u2019s buggy mobile notification system.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Los Angeles County\u2019s alert system broadcast an erroneous evacuation alert<\/a> to all residents in its jurisdiction, instead of just to those near the West Hills neighborhood, which was threatened by the Kenneth Fire.<\/p>\n

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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.\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d Ms. Lifton asked.\u201cYou have to download the Watch Duty app,\u201d her sister responded.Ms. Lifton did just that, tracking the spread of the fire through the app\u2019s map and updates as she packed her car with her most prized possessions \u2014 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\u2019s buggy mobile notification system.On Thursday night, Los Angeles County\u2019s 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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19810,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19811,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808\/revisions\/19811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}