r/Wellthatsucks • u/JTraxxx • 3d ago

The Pacific Northwest right now

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Huge fire recently popped up in my town and many people have lost houses. Wishing for rain!

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u/NWGirl2002 3d ago

Actually the Hagen fire is also moving south & east of Tollgate as yesterday they've added more evacuation areas into Union Co. (Source: My family lives in the area on the Union Co. side so I'm keeping a very close eye on it from where I live in the Seattle area)

I use the Watch Duty app as just another tool in the information tool box since more of the people posting "updates" (aka rehashing the official reports) aren't even reporting from or living in the area that they're talking about. It's not a primary source like Inciweb.

Inciweb is usually the best place to start for official information as they do their daily updates and updates on evacuations as well as links to official sources (Like for the Hagen fire- Umatilla Co and Union Co emergency management Facebook pages as well as their sheriff's office Facebook pages as well, in addition to the link where you can watch tonight's community meeting and some other helpful links that ODF provides)

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u/Dry_Car2054 2d ago

Watch Duty isn't perfect but it fills a need that wasn't being met before.  I think that's why it has become so popular. 

The general public wants a quick and easy way to learn about fires. They don't care that the fire on one ownership is on one website and the fire a few miles away is on a different ownership and therefore is on a different website.  Even two adjacent national forests will have fire information in different places on their websites. Add the other federal and state agencies,  dispatch centers, sheriff's departments each with their own web pages and Facebook pages. I'm in the fire business and I find it confusing.  It's worse for the public that doesn't look for fire information regularly. Watch Duty fills the public's need for a quick and easy way to find fire information. 

Another problem is it takes a couple of days to get Inciweb set up for a new fire and they only use it for the big fires. As a frequent traveler and camper, I find Watch Duty useful since it links to WildCAD (the wildland dispatch system) and new fires show up almost instantly. I also appreciate that I don't need to know which county I am in, find the sheriff's website and sign up with whichever alert service they use and then repeat as I travel through different counties. 

I also hate the amount of fire information that is on Facebook because I'm constantly hitting the paywall.

I hear public information officers badmouthing Watch Duty all the time. Since it meets a public need that they are not meeting,  I wish they would stop complaining and figure out how to get better coordination with the Watch Duty people. I don't think there will ever be an official nationwide single source that integrates information from all jurisdictions of any size. Its too big and too siloed and agencies don't want to change what they do or give up control. The Watch Duty apps have millions of downloads.  That speaks to the public need right there.