Without government, who would...?

Many people agree that the current political system is increasingly corrupt and authoritarian. Despite this growing skepticism, far fewer believe it is possible to live without the very system they recognize isn’t working for humanity. The belief that people can’t survive without government often colors discussions about natural disasters, which FEMA or other governmental aid organizations currently manage in the US.

This article is the second of an ongoing series on solutions. The first article focused on a historical story: the Black Panthers’ community survival programs and how the group and their supporters worked together to supply essential goods and services to people in need. This installment will focus on a present-day success story: the Watch Duty wildfire app.

The app gained widespread adoption and recognition in California during the 2025 wildfires. I am from Los Angeles, and the fires were close enough to my home that at one point, I looked out at a mountain from my balcony and saw the flames from the infamous Palisades fire creeping up the other side.

Luckily, the flames never crossed over that ridge, and I never had to evacuate. I knew this because of Watch Duty, which proved to be a much more reliable source of up-to-date information on the fires than government websites and alerts. On one occasion during the ordeal, I received an incorrect evacuation notice that was mistakenly sent out to millions of Los Angeles residents. The automated text said we had to evacuate, but it was wrong—and it caused unnecessary stress for people who received it in error.

Throughout the course of the fires, the government’s evacuation website was glitchy and disorganized. Given how little faith I place in government as it is, I took the recommendation of a firefighter I know and downloaded Watch Duty. This firefighter knew about it, he said, because many fire departments use the app. This matches what Brian Fennessy, the fire chief of the Orange County Fire Authority, told Wired last year: “I don't really know any firefighters who don't have Watch Duty on their phones. I mean, it literally has become the app, period.”

Watch Duty was born of frustrations toward communication failures similar to what occurred during the LA fires. The creator, entrepreneur and software engineer John Clark Mills, built Watch Duty because he was tired of the government’s inadequate responses. He personally experienced these issues before making the app. During one fire near his home in Sonoma, CA, he only learned he was at risk when a helicopter flew overhead and signaled to him to evacuate as air tankers flew in to fight the fire. He had received no notice or alerts that a fire was spreading toward his house.

“I’ve been through this a couple times, and I am bombarded with nonsense alerts, alerts that don’t say anything or no alerts at all, frankly,” he told The Hollywood Reporter last year.

He set out to educate himself, connecting with firefighters and taking wildfire training courses. He attempted to work with politicians found they had little interest in supporting his intentions to improve wildfire responses. As a result, he took action on his own. “I just realized that no one was going to fix this, no one was going to figure it out, and there’s lots of people like me who were trying to figure out what is going on,” he told the Reporter.

In 2021, he created Watch Duty. The app provides real-time notifications about fires. It also offers evacuation updates, shelter locations, air quality data, wind patterns, the containment status of active fires, and external links to press conferences, releases, and local news reports. Where the government’s systems are unreliable and unwieldy, Watch Duty is efficient and easy to use.

Watch Duty is a non-profit and operates thanks to the work of both paid employees and volunteers. Many of them are retired firefighters with expertise in these disasters. The app’s staff monitor radio chatter from fire departments on the ground and report this information via the app. While much of the information they report comes from public agencies and employees, the notification system Watch Duty provides is very much non-governmental.

Mills did not create the app to turn a profit. It’s free to use, but many people have found it valuable enough to pay for the app voluntarily in exchange for even more information, such as tracking updates on firefighting planes. All the most essential and life-saving features remain free.

To increase their effectiveness, Watch Duty has also formed partnerships with other organizations. This is important when envisioning a world without centrally planned government services. The more people and groups work together and pool their expertise and resources, the less they need to rely on government agencies. As Mills has emphasized, Watch Duty itself functions as a team effort.

Watch Duty has expanded well beyond California to cover the entire country and now provides notifications for major floods, as well. During the LA fires, millions of people were using the app because it was more accurate, trustworthy, and expedient than the government’s notification system. While some firefighters have raised concerns that Watch Duty prioritizes expediency over accuracy, as noted, questions of accuracy still plague government notifications, too.

Fighting fires and facilitating fire safety was not always a function of government. Benjamin Franklin helped found the Union Fire Co., the first fully volunteer fire department, in 1736. This was modeled after Boston’s mutual fire societies, or “fire clubs,” which served members of these groups. In contrast, Franklin’s Union Fire Co. set out to aid the whole community—not just members. In the 1800s, fighting fires was often a function of insurance companies that had an incentive to prevent and put out fires. Insurance companies still use private firefighting companies today.

When wealthy homeowners in Los Angeles benefited from private firefighting crews to protect their homes as insurance companies, they drew heavy criticism (mostly from those on the left concerned about privilege and underserved communities). Even so, protecting these homes still helped the broader effort by helping stem the spread. Additionally, ABC News noted last year that the majority of private firefighters do not just serve individuals and their homes when fires break out; they are sometimes even contracted by governments to help public fire crews. Further, some homeowners have installed fire hydrants on their property as a first line of defense for a lower cost than hiring a private squad. While this may not be as effective as a whole firefighting team, it helps homeowners take matters into their own hands and reduce risk.

Another option is free and reflects the power of autonomy and self-responsibility: In one relevant example, people in one northern California town managed to save their homes by taking small actions. Residents of Los Gatos didn’t wait for the government to protect their homes. They cleared dead shrubs and leaves in their yards, kept grass cut down to the dirt, and trimmed tree foliage (though they were following government-issued guidelines that had been sent out to residents, it’s worth noting that such knowledge is not exclusive to people in government).

In doing so, they slowed the pace of a fire that broke out days later, adding crucial time for firefighters to stop the fire before it spiraled out of control. Though the fire department still provided firefighting services, their efforts were more successful because these residents took responsibility for their own safety.

It’s worth acknowledging that Watch Duty still operates within the paradigm of government and its corporate partners. The information it reports inevitably comes from government sources because government agencies are still largely responsible for disaster responses. Further, this year, Watch Duty partnered with Amazon’s Ring, allowing people’s Ring devices to alert them about fires. Users have the option to share their camera data with Watch Duty. This has raised privacy concerns given Ring’s track record of sharing data with police and its role in normalizing constant surveillance. That said, Mills has insisted privacy concerns are unfounded because Watch Duty does not sell data. “We're not some AI company trying to profiteer,” he said amid the announcement of the partnership.

Unfortunately, in today’s paradigm of corporatism, it is difficult to avoid remaining completely independent of the powers-that-be. Partnering with an entrenched company like Amazon may be a more effective way to share life-saving information, which is why Mill says Watch Duty has done so. “We’re focused on other problems, not on some sort of data-mining exercise.  We’re a bunch of concerned citizens who are trying to get as much intelligence as we can about what’s going on in the heat of the moment — to provide value to not only ourselves and our volunteers and employees who live in these fire zones, but also the community that we serve.”

Despite its recent partnership with Amazon and the current paradigm of government-focused disaster responses, Watch Duty represents an exceptional example of “doing it yourself” and not waiting for the “authorities” to save you. It highlights what is possible when individuals take matters into their own hands. Even with a backdrop of government involvement in wildfire responses, Watch Duty offers a bridge that empowers and encourages people to take their well-being and safety into their own hands. Its origin story reflects that individuals working together can—and do—make a difference.