Popular app Wildfire’s monitoring duty expands to cover floods across the country

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After helping track fires for years, Watch Duty aims to become your disaster go-to with flood coverage straight from the front lines.

Tyler Lacoma Editor / Home security and smart home

Tyler has worked, lived with, and tested all types of smart home and security technology for over a dozen years, explaining the latest features, privacy tips, and top recommendations. With degrees in business management, literature, and technical writing, Tyler takes every opportunity to play with the latest AI technologies, push smart devices to their limits, and occasionally throw cameras off his roof—all to find the best devices to trust with your life. He’s always checking in with the tenants (and pets) in his life to see which smart products can work for everyone, in every living situation. Living in beautiful Bend, Oregon gives Tyler plenty of opportunities to test the latest technologies in all kinds of weather conditions and temperatures. But when he’s not at work, he can be found hiking the trails, trying a new cooking recipe for loved ones, keeping up with his favorite reads, or playing games with good friends.

Skill Smart Home | Smart security | Home technology | Energy savings | A/V

Like many on the West CoastWhen fire season is approachingI light phone alerts from the popular free Watch Duty app. It combines reports from first responders, volunteers and other data sources into a map and log of nearby fires and their current status. It’s one of the few apps that goes beyond just being useful and can actually save lives. Since Monday, Watch Duty has also been covering the floods.

Flood coverage is available nationwide at no additional cost and adds blue flood icons to Watch Duty’s maps alongside its existing red blaze markers.

If you already have Watch Duty, the next time you open the app you’ll be greeted with a message about flood coverage and an invitation to “Explore Flood Layers.” This will take you to settings where you can choose alerts for general wildfires, weather, flooding, or all of the above. You can also choose the type of flood alerts you receive, from watches and warnings to observed water levels or just FEMA-declared flood risk warnings.

Watch Duty also told me that its app will provide live reporting on specific flooding incidents that could immediately put lives at risk, such as dam/levee failures or destroyed bridges.

This expansion follows that of Watch Duty in early 2026 partnership with security company Ringwhich allows Ring users to receive Watch Duty notifications through the Ring Neighbors app and choose to use their cameras to automatically detect potential signs of fire — a feature you can turn off if you don’t want Ring’s AI watching.

Editor / Home security and smart home

Tyler has worked, lived with, and tested all types of smart home and security technology for over a dozen years, explaining the latest features, privacy tips, and top recommendations. With degrees in business management, literature, and technical writing, Tyler takes every opportunity to play with the latest AI technologies, push smart devices to their limits, and occasionally throw cameras off his roof—all to find the best devices to trust with your life. He’s always checking in with the tenants (and pets) in his life to see which smart products can work for everyone, in every living situation. Living in beautiful Bend, Oregon gives Tyler plenty of opportunities to test the latest technologies in all kinds of weather conditions and temperatures. But when he’s not at work, he can be found hiking the trails, trying a new cooking recipe for loved ones, keeping up with his favorite reads, or playing games with good friends. See full bio