Watch Duty was downloaded 2 million times during this week’s LA fires

The Watch Duty fire tracking app has become a crucial source of information for Los Angeles residents threatened by wildfires.

As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff explainedthe app relies on a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer journalists who monitor radio scanners to offer real-time updates on active fires.

During this week’s fires, where official alerts could be buggy or inaccurate, Watch Duty climbed to the top of Apple’s App Store charts. And in an interview Saturday with the New York TimesCEO John Mills said the app has been downloaded 2 million times since Tuesday and has seen 14 million unique users this week.

Mills said the app is operated by a nonprofit funded primarily by donations, with 15 full-time employees and 200 employees. He insisted that Watch Duty collects very little personal data about users and that it has no intention of selling it.

“I owe it to my community not to be a disaster capitalist,” he said.