Watch Duty notifications are based on the counties you subscribe to, not your distance from a fire. Understanding this can help explain why you might receive a notification about a fire farther away.
Notifications are based on counties
When you subscribe to a county, you will receive notifications for incidents throughout that entire county. You can't exclude a specific city or portion of a county from your subscription.
Free users can subscribe to notifications for up to four counties. Watch Duty Members can subscribe to an unlimited number of counties.
Do radius or map boundaries affect my notifications?
No. Watch Duty does not currently support custom radius-based or boundary-based incident notifications.
Not every fire sends a notification
Not every incident reported in Watch Duty generates a notification.
Some lower-risk incidents begin as silent incidents. These incidents are monitored and appear in Watch Duty, but they don't generate a standard push notification. If the situation changes, a silent incident may be upgraded to a regular incident, which is indicated by the flame icon on the map.
You can choose to receive notifications for silent incidents in your notification settings.
Even for regular incidents, not every report or update generates a notification. Our reporting team determines which updates warrant a notification based on the information being reported.
What are Critical Alerts?
Critical Alerts are reserved for exceptional, time-sensitive life-safety situations. On supported devices, they can bypass silent mode and Focus or Do Not Disturb settings when enabled.
Critical Alerts are not sent for every incident or evacuation. For information about device availability, how to enable them, and when they may be used, see How Critical Alerts Work in Watch Duty.
How can I control which notifications I receive?
Receive only the first notification for a fire
In your notification settings, you can choose to receive only the first notification for an incident. This can be useful if you want to know when a fire begins without receiving subsequent notifications about that incident.
Follow a specific fire
If you want to closely follow a particular fire:
- Select the fire in Watch Duty.
- Find Turn on notifications for this incident beneath the acreage and containment information.
- Turn on notifications for the incident.
You'll then receive notifications for that incident when updates are sent, regardless of your broader notification preferences.
Where will I receive Watch Duty notifications?
Watch Duty notifications are delivered as push notifications through the Watch Duty app on iOS and Android.
Notifications are not delivered by:
- SMS/text message
- Web browser notifications
Will I receive notifications for prescribed burns?
No. Watch Duty does not send notifications for prescribed burns, but once a prescribed burn appears in Watch Duty, you can subscribe to updates by following the instructions above for following a specific fire.