"A notification popped up on Liam Winstead's computer screen, alerting him to a potential grass fire. "It looks like it's near the mall in Carlsbad along the 78," said Winstead, a staff reporter with Watch Duty, a nonprofit fire information app. The clock started ticking for him to confirm if it was a real fire and whether it posed any danger."
"Winstead pulled up live lookout cameras in the area to search for smoke. He then toggled over to Caltrans' real-time traffic map, looking for highway slowdowns that could indicate the fire's location. Emergency radio feeds streamed in his headphones, allowing him to monitor fire response chatter. "I usually have two feeds going," Winstead said - one in either ear. He switched between tabs and windows with the keystroke fluency of a seasoned pro."
"But if you're picturing Winstead working in a command center surrounded by walls of monitors and high tech equipment, think again. The recent college grad was toiling away in the bedroom of his UTC apartment, using a small MacBook, a single monitor and a radio. But from this unassuming setup, Winstead holds tremendous responsibility. When he and a volunteer colleague confirmed the Carlsbad fire was real and posed a risk to nearby residents, Winstead sent a notification to Watch Duty's San Diego County subscribers."
Watch Duty is a nonprofit fire-information app that delivers real-time wildfire and evacuation alerts to large numbers of subscribers and is used by both residents and emergency responders. Volunteer staff monitor live lookout cameras, Caltrans traffic maps and emergency radio feeds to verify fires and assess risk. Operators can work from modest home setups yet reach hundreds of thousands of phones with a single alert. Separately, frequent consumers of fish caught in the San Francisco Bay face potential exposure to persistent, dangerous chemicals at unhealthy levels.
Read at Kqed
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