WildfireWatch wins Rep. Ro Khanna’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 17th District.

When asked what inspired the creation of WildfireWatch, the student said, “My home state of California is scorched by wildfires every year. During trips to Yosemite National Park with my family, it is depressing for me to see so many of the huge Sequoia trees burned to ashes and the forest filled with burned tree stumps due to wildfires. We have several bad air quality days and have to stay indoors because the smoke from wildfires burning nearby is too dangerous to inhale. These experiences have fueled my interest in learning more about wildfires.

I researched on wildfires extensively, learning about wildfires on the West Coast states, the factors that cause wildfires to spread, and tools that exist to predict the spread of wildfires. I also researched how wildfires affect people in California and the West Coast. For instance, I learned that the number of people who are highly socially vulnerable and exposed to fire has significantly increased in the West Coast states in 2011-2021 vs the decade prior (Rad et al., 2023). I read that in 2014, in an Eastern Washington fire, Hispanic farm workers had difficulty evacuating due to language barriers, as they did not receive evacuation notifications in Spanish (Davies et al., 2018). These farm workers were in a high wildfire risk area and also had high social vulnerabilities like language barriers and low income. After a thorough analysis, I found that although models exist currently to either predict wildfire risk separately or to identify socially vulnerable areas separately, a solution that combines both risk factors into a singular risk quantity for each community does not exist!! So I created WildfireWatch, which integrates wildfire risk with social vulnerability using AI and shows color-coded risk mapping of communities across the USA, so resources can be allocated appropriately to regions in urgent need of support during wildfire disasters.

I did a user-survey to get feedback on what features users will find useful in my app. I interviewed Mr. Michael Ryan, a retired Battalion Chief of the City of Santa Clara Fire Department, CA who has led several wildfire-fighting teams. I also showed my app’s prototype to 16 potential users in California. Based on their feedback, I incorporated features into my project, such as making WildfireWatch a web app instead of mobile app, adding color-coded risk level mapping feature and providing an information page.”